Around the first of October each year, Claxton Fruit Cake arrives in London and is quickly distributed to area TSC Stores and Shoppers Drug Marts, among other locations. The first delivery has been made to TSC Stores, with the balance arriving around November 3rd. Shortly thereafter, our members will get the cake out to Shoppers Drug Marts and other outlets in the area. Civitan is the Canadian Distributor of Claxton Fruit Cake, both light and dark cakes, and this club raises a large portion of its funds from the sale of cake, both wholesale and retail. The ever popular cake comes in individually wrapped one pound pieces, or three to a box, 24 pounds to a case. Our members 'slug' thousands of pounds between October 1st and mid December each year. TSC Stores kindly warehouse our cake when it first arrives in London, and for the 2007-08 season, they distributed over 1100 cases of cake or almost 27,000 pounds of it throughout their network of stores. The Civitan Club members had another 300 cases or 7,200 pounds to distribute to Shoppers Stores around London, Ingersoll, Woodstock, Simcoe, St. Thomas, Chatham, Sarnia, Petrolia and other locations in South Western Ontario. Various bakeries around London also buy the product from us, plus several members handle private sales of this 'hot product'. In 2005-06, TSC Stores donated back part of their profits to London Middlesex Civitan Club, which enabled us to donate funds to the Community Living London house located on Dissing Crescent, where we helped plant a Healing Garden on May 13th; it also enabled us to contribute a large sum towards sending five athletes to the Special Olympic games in Manitoba in July. Without the sales of Claxton Cake, this club would not be able to make many donations back to the community during the year. Special thanks at the end of the 2007 Cake Season go once again to John, President of Liberty Freezers, and Duane, Operations Manager, for kindly storing our "excess supply" until Fall, 2008. Sales for the season where down from what was anticipated, and rather than have all that cake go to waste, it is safely stored until next year. We all know that fruit cake gets better with age! Check out their facilities at http://www.libertyfreezers.ca/. |
