By Steven Ziegler

For a long time now, our hard working photographers have been working under the instructions to create very clear, concise photographs of our products. It makes sense, right? You want to see exactly what you will get when you purchase items online. But lately we have noticed something else: besides just seeing the item, people also want to see the item in use. Since these are food service items, that means seeing these items with food. And how lucky we are, to get to work with the most beautiful thing in the universe (next to my wife): food. And so the instructions to our photographers have changed.

But switching gears is never easy. The first thing item they tried to do some food styling with was deli containers. You see, Food Network Magazine had just featured our deli containers in the September issue, and many people were looking for them. And this is what these poor people had to look at:

Not exactly appetizing, is it? We've been referring to the contents of that container as "swamp juice". Lesson learned: you just cannot make soup look pretty in a deli container. Our photographers have changed most of those pictures to a much prettier vegetable medley, after receiving lots of ribbing about their aesthetic sensibilities.

We are going to continue to work hard at our food styling skills, but in the meantime: we need your help. We know from the photos that you folks have sent to us, that you are much better food stylists than we are! At the bottom of every item description is a place for you to write reviews. If you click that, you will see tabs that allow you to submit a photo. If you do that and the photo is accepted, you get $4 off of your next order. Not only that, but thousands of folks will get a chance to appreciate your fine photographic and food styling skills.

Here are a couple of my favorites already submitted by our customers:

Thanks to Phil T. and Brenda G for these great photos! We hope to see your photos soon!