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This is Fred Ball for Zions Bank, speaking on business.
I love to cook but I often don't have time. And my wife Joyce and I, being long-time empty nesters, can't always eat the large portions many recipes make. So I was interested to hear recently about a line of recipe software developed here in Utah that has made cooking a snap--or should I say click? It's called Cook'n, and it was created by Daniel V. Oaks, Jr. whose company DVO Enterprises produces and markets the software.
Designed for today's busy cooks, Cook'n helps users collect and keep track of recipes from any source, making it easy to find just the recipe they need. Each Cook'n product comes with a variety of recipes, and the line includes more than 12 software titles--everything from Cook'n with Taste of Home to Cook'n for Diabetics. Recipes can be printed, downloaded to a Palm-based handheld or emailed to friends. Cook'n will automatically adjust recipes for larger or smaller servings and perform a nutritional analysis of the recipes. Users can even type in the ingredients they have on hand and Cook'n will find all the recipes that use those ingredients. Cook'n also allows users to put recipes together into menus and generate shopping lists to make grocery shopping a breeze. The program includes video clips with cooking tips and advice and even lets you add video, pictures and sound to create your own cooking library.
It's a brilliant concept. But surprisingly, Dan told me that he faced some pretty big challenges when he first introduced it. Finding a national distributor wasn't easy, and there were already 26 different competing products from several well-known brands. But Dan didn't give up. Sam's Club began selling Cook'n in the fall of 1997 and within four months had sold 40,000 copies. And the big-name competitors gradually stopped offering their products when they realized they couldn't compete. Well, these days, sales are up. In fact, we could say they're really "Cook'n" for Dan V. Oaks, Jr. and DVO Enterprises.
For Zions Bank, I'm Fred Ball. I'm speaking on business.
