Tammi Kibler (AKA Keenonquinoa) announces the Where to Buy Quinoa Contest for US and Canadian food bloggers, personal trainers, mommy bloggers, and all other quinoa enthusiasts.
One challenge quinoa faces is that even when a store carries quinoa, customers may not know where to find it. They may not recognize quinoa brand name packaging, or maybe they just don’t know where it’s placed in the store.
We are going to change all that with the Where to Buy Quinoa website, an online resource for finding quinoa in your hometown store.
GRAND PRIZE
The grand prize has a suggested retail price of approximately $550 and includes prizes from 16 different sponsors:
6 – 3.5 oz Midnight Crunch Dark Chocolate Quinoa Bars, 3 – 1 lb. pouches of Fair Trade Red Quinoa, and 1 lb. of new Fair Trade Rainbow Quinoa
4 – 22 oz bags of Quinoa Flour
Mixed Fruit Quinoa Cereal 6 pack (2 each of Banana Cinnamon, Wild Blueberries, and Orange and Fresh Cranberries flavors)
3 – 12 oz. pouches of Earthy Delights Quinoa and 3 – 12 oz. pouches of Earthy Delights Black Quinoa
Eden Organics
6 – 12 oz. boxes of Kamut & Quinoa Twisted Pair gemelli pasta
A variety box of 12 – 1.8 oz. Quinoa Energy Bars (6 each of Almond Chocolate Chip and Lemon Cranberry flavors) and 3 – 3.5 oz. pouches of Quinoa Crunch (1 each of Almond Blueberry Peach, Raspberry Pineapple, and Strawberry Mango)
5 pouches of Whole Grain Pilafs
Patricia Green & Carolyn Hemming
Quinoa 365: The Everyday Superfood
The Part-Time Vegan: 201 Recipes that Put the Fun in Flexitarian
It’s Pronounced KEEN-wah T-shirt
s Gone Crackers2 boxes Wheat Free Crackers, 2 bags of Wheat Free Pretzels, and 1 box of N’Oatmeal Raisin Cookies
6 pouches of Premium Organic Quinoa
6 Quinoa Mixes
2 chubs of Quinoa Polenta, 2 lbs. of Black Quinoa, and 6 boxes of Ancient Harvest Garden Pagoda Pasta.
6 boxes of White Quinoa
6 bags of Organic Quinoa and 6 bags of Sprouted Quinoa
Each entry requires at least one photo (photo suggestions) and an essay describing where someone who lives at a particular ZIP or postal code can buy quinoa and quinoa products from three local merchants (or could if these merchants carried quinoa).
These don’t all have to be stores within the same ZIP/postal code, but it should make sense for someone living at that ZIP/postal code to shop the stores. You can see my sample listing at Where to Buy Quinoa: Bedford, MA 01730 to understand what I have in mind.
WHAT BECOMES OF YOUR ENTRY
Each entry will become a page on the Where to Buy Quinoa website, similar to a guest blog post. You may include a thumbnail photo of yourself, a brief bio, and a link back to your blog or website.
Your page will give you exposure not only to your neighbors looking for quinoa, but also to local stores and other bloggers in your region, and to quinoa producers and distributors looking to conduct social media campaigns.
Your page will have open comments that permit others to update the information and keep this resource relevant for years to come.
Your page will be a highly relevant resource for its keyword, so your page will likely benefit from future Google search algorithm changes.
FIRST COME GETS THE MONOPOLY
The first person to submit a particular 5 digit US ZIP code or 6 digit Canadian postal code will hold it exclusively while I try to get coverage as wide as possible. Additional entries for the same ZIP code will use a +4 designator and additional entries for the postal code will have a trailing series of letters or numbers.
HOW TO WIN
The contest closes on May 11, 2011 at 11:59 pm EST. I will then review entries and select a winner by May 15, 2011. I reserve the right to reach out to others to help with the judging if the entry pool gets too large. 
I will be judging on the following criteria:
- Three stores
- Balanced review
- Helpful
- Local flavor
I hope you will be a part of this. I have worked very hard to craft a quinoa contest big enough to get your attention.
CONGRATULATIONS
Jennifer Preston of Gone With the Gluten. is the winner in the Where to Buy Quinoa contest. Here is a photo of the package I sent:
WOOT! WOOT! Quinoa loot.
