Edible Arrangements Puts a Fruity Spin on Gift-Giving, Healthy Snacking

Flowers and balloons are classic ways to celebrate special occasions and life’s great milestones but by the end of next week, residents of Summit and the surrounding area will have a revolutionary new option for expressing their sentiments.

The city of Summit will be welcoming an Edible Arrangements store to Summit Avenue in the coming days which will feature a rainbow of fruit arrangements, fruit truffles, fruit beverages and snacks, and a variety of other fresh fruit items that appeal to both the eye and the appetite.

“It’s a good product, it’s healthy and it tastes really, really good!” said Maria Maffei who, along with her husband Steve, owns the Summit franchise.

At Edible Arrangements, customers will find a number of baskets, boxes and vases filled with creatively cut fruit slices specially arranged in a bouquet style. The unique fruit shapes include flowers, stars, numbers and holiday designs. While some arrangements are available for purchase from the store’s refrigerator case, most are made to be ordered and customized for special occasions.

Maria Maffei explained that the store’s main arrangements feature seasonal fruits and currently, mangoes, watermelon and kiwi are on the menu for the summertime. During the cooler months, oranges and apples are more common among the pretty treats.

Edible Arrangements also sells boxes and bouquets of chocolate-dipped strawberries and fruits such as pineapple and orange slices. Their specialty truffles are created by covering fruit bites in chocolate and topping them with almonds, coconut and cinnamon.

“The fruit tastes outrageous,” said Maria Maffei. “It just tastes unbelievable!”

In addition to the gift of beautiful fresh fruit, arrangements can be customized with festive accents such as balloons or teddy bears, and their containers span themes from birthdays to new homes, kids’ parties and weddings.

“I would send them to everybody whether it was a funeral or a [new] baby or for Christmas,” said Maffei of her personal experience with the store’s gift products. “Everybody just loves the baskets. It’s pretty, they taste good, and it’s colorful.”

One aspect of the Summit store that will set it apart from others like it will be its section of “Edible to Go” products. Such to-go items include fresh fruit salads, smoothies, parfaits, individually sold chocolate-covered fruits, Frusundaes topped with chocolate sauce and whipped cream, and freshly-squeezed juices.

According to Maffei, the only other New Jersey store to offer Edible to Go items is located in Hoboken.

All the fruit used in the products sold at Edible Arrangements is freshly cut at the store and shipped locally from a produce company in Hillside every other day. Gourmet chocolate is used for covering the truffle and chocolate-dipped items and all ingredients found in the store’s foods and beverages are completely natural.

It may surprise customers that Edible Arrangements is the first business venture ever undertaken by Green Brook residents Steve and Maria Maffei, who have held careers in the field of Information Technology for almost 30 years.

In light of the uncertainty surrounding today’s economy, Steve Maffei said he began thinking that he and his family needed to find a way to ensure that they had a steady income in their futures. Steve and his wife began investigating numerous franchises but it was Maria who proposed the idea of Edible Arrangements.

“I received an [Edible] Arrangement over 10 years ago at a party and I’d never seen anything like it. It was like the most beautiful thing I’d ever seen,” remembered Maria Maffei. “I kept the skewers, thinking, ‘Oh, I could do this’ and to this day I still have the skewers in my drawer.”

Maffei may not have followed through with making the edible creations in her own home but after extensive training, Steve and Maria now have the skills to create fun and unique arrangements for their future customers.

“We’ve learned more in the last five months than we have in the last 10 years,” said Steve Maffei of the process of launching the new business.

Steve and Maria Maffei noted that their biggest competitors tend to be florists, which was something that had to be taken into consideration when seeking a store location, but the owners both claimed that the Edible Arrangement product is significantly different from a bouquet of flowers.

“At the end of the day, you have to throw away flowers but you can eat our bouquets!” said Steve Maffei.

“And it’s healthy!” added his wife, Maria.

For their opening next week, Summit’s Edible Arrangements will be giving away free samples and coupons to the store for those who stop by.

Edible Arrangements is located at 84 Summit Avenue and its owners hope to open the store to the public by the end of next week.