Often a fun and happening place, the San Diego Convention Center was even more so when it hosted the American Wholesale Marketers Association Expo 2000, which attracted a crowd of more than 5,000 for three days last month. The products on display were a smorgasbord of items their makers hope will tantalize you at checkout lines and displays at small markets and convenience stores. With U.S. sales alone coming to more than $45 billion, this is a serious business, despite the many silly products.

This year more than 750 booths offered every imaginable kind of candy, cookie, cracker, meat snack, slurpee, bottled beverage, tobacco product and, from two Southern California manufacturers, a number of herbal energy boosters and, ahem, passion enhancers.

"Vital-Agra is our hottest new product," says Carl Silkensen, regional manager for Vital 4-U in Rancho Mirage. "We built our core business with our 'Liquid Energy' and 'Screamin' Energy' lines. Now Vital-Agra is jumping off the shelf."

Bob Brent, founder of Blast Products in Palm Springs, attributes the success of its recently introduced 'Passion Blast' to all the media attention given to Viagra. "I feel a certain debt of gratitude to those nice folks at Pfizer Pharmaceuticals. Of course we’re all-natural, but I believe they opened the door to acceptance of this kind of product."

Both Silkensen and Brent are quick to explain that their original energy products are still their biggest sellers. And both attribute the mystique of the active Southern California lifestyle to their success.

"Let some other part of the country be known as the beef-jerky capital of America.." Silkensen says. "Southern Californians are too busy stokin' it, dude."

— Tim Wheeler