Building Hudson Henry Baking Co. on Her Own Terms
(Listen on Apple or Spotify. Full transcript below.)
hope lawrence built hudson henry into a million dollar business, and then sold it - in the most baboyot way.
In a world where bigger, faster, and with the most investment possible - seems to be the guidebook for building a business. We’ve made it our mission to highlight the stories of Founders who are successfully doing it differently.
why we invited hope to the podcast
Hope launched Hudson Henry Baking Company in 2012. It’s an award winning granola brand that she named after her two sons, Hudson and Henry - they've got six Sofi Awards, were featured on the Today Show as one of Kathie Lee and Hoda's favorite things, got started with very little investment (and was totally self-funded), and achieved profitability quickly.
Those are all great reasons to invite Hope to the podcast! But another big reason was to discuss the idea of selling your business to a like-minded company rather than a conglomerate.
Hudson Hentry challenges industry norms
There are a lot people in the food industry that believe that outside investment is required for growth. That fast national growth is the only way to grow. And that the national volumes, despite low margins, will result in a profitable business.
I’m personally not sure how many failed food businesses it will take for people to learn that this is not a roadmap to success. But until then, we’ll be here challenging these industry norms by sharing Founder stories like Hope’s.
Hudson Henry was started with personal investment and never took outside funding. They owned their backyard before growing beyond it, paid attention to operational efficiency and sales channel mix to achieve profitability, and then grew their sales to $1 million annually.
selling, without selling out
With the recent sales of Siete Foods and Simple Mills, there has been a lot of talk about the need and desire for CPG founders to sell to a big corporation. The dialogue is usually around the small margins and emphasizing that the only way to make money in CPG is to sell.
I struggle with this for two reasons:
I know it’s not true and have client stories to prove it
I know that with every sale of a better-for-you brand to a big conglomerate our food system becomes more consolidated. People lose real choice, small farmers and producers loose opportunities to sell into the food system, and the only people who benefit are those that profit from the sale.
Hope shows us that food businesses can generate income for founders and employees before selling. She illustrates that when you’re ready to hand over your business to someone else, it can be to a values-aligned organization that continues to honor what made the brand special, and doesn’t contribute to further food industry consolidation.
building a business on your own terms
Hope exudes BABOYOT energy, and continues to support founders who strive to do the same.
In this episode, you'll hear:
How Hope built a profitable business with minimal investment
Why she chose granola (it's a fascinating operational decision!)
What a successful regional brand really looks like, and how she managed sales channel growth
How to find the right buyer for your business legacy
thinking big can look small
This conversation really shows us that thinking big can look small - and that's perfectly okay.
If you’re ready to challenge your assumptions about what success looks like in the food industry, tune into this episode.
Then, help us reach our goal of connecting with 1 million food founders by sharing this episode with a founder friend who needs to hear this message!
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Episode Timeline
00:00 Introduction and Podcast Goals
02:56 The Journey of Hope Lawrence
06:07 Building a Business with Minimal Investment
09:07 The Importance of Operations and Efficiency
12:05 From Good News Granola to Hudson Henry
14:54 Getting Featured on the Today Show
18:13 Sales Growth and Challenges
20:56 Profitability and Financial Management
24:08 Transitioning to Wholesale and Direct Sales
26:59 Lessons Learned and Future Aspirations
32:38 Navigating Distribution Challenges
39:17 The Importance of Operations in Scaling
49:53 The Journey of Selling a Business
56:26 Life After the Sale: New Beginnings
Full Episode Transcript
This episode of the Good Food CFO podcast is sponsored by Settle.
to the Good Food CFO podcast. I am your host, Sara Delevan, and with us as always is our producer, Chelsea Stier. Chelsea, what do you have for us today?
Hey, Sarah. And hello, listeners. Sarah, before I answer that question, I want to remind everyone listening that we have a really big goal here on the podcast, and that is to reach 1 million food founders. one of the ways that you listening at home or in the car, maybe you're working out wherever you're listening, right? One of the ways that you can help us to reach that goal is by sharing this episode or any episode that you listen to.
rating the podcast wherever you're listening, whether it's Spotify, Apple, right? Even on YouTube, leave us a comment, like the video and leave us a review. We love sharing those reviews here and I actually have a new one for you today, Sarah.
I love it. Yeah.
So this review comes from Melanie from the Lazy Goat Studio. And she said, just rewatching you folks on the 100th episode on YouTube for the first time. I cannot describe how much your podcasts have been instrumental in pricing our products and gaining confidence with our choices.
My gosh. Well, first of all, Melanie, thank you so much for sharing this with us. As I think I've said here before, we do this work for you guys and for positive change in our food industry. And it is just so wonderful to hear from folks to know that they're listening and that you're benefiting from the content that we are creating. so...
Just thank you and same goes for reviews. You don't have to email us or you can post a review. think I know that this one came into our inbox because I happen to have seen it there. It just makes me so happy and humbled and dedicated to keep creating content that matters and that can really help founders and change our industry. I know Chelsea, you and I are equally committed to that. just everything you said, reaching a million
Good Food Founders is such a gigantic goal, but it is our goal. And we're going to do it one listener and one subscriber at a time. And folks like Melanie, you're truly helping us to reach that one additional founder, whether it be every day or every week. So I could go on and on, but just seriously and sincerely thank you so, much. And thank you, for bringing that review and feedback to the podcast because it's always nice to hear it here as well.
Of course. I would just reiterate everything you just said, right? Copy paste. Melanie, thank you so much. We did love receiving that in our inbox. remember like tagging each other and being like hard faces and hearts and it was.
Yeah, that thing they say on social media of like when you purchase something from a small business owner, when you send a piece of feedback to a small business owner, and we are quite a small business, we shared a little bit about that in our impact report recently, we really do celebrate. There is a text chain, there is an email thread. It really does excite us. It's not just about showcasing it here on the podcast. It is meaningful to everybody on our team. So on behalf of
of our VP of operations, Keisha, who doesn't get to show up here on the podcast. celebrates every review, every feedback, every purchase just as much as we do. So thank you from Keisha as well. Yeah.
Okay, so now that we've talked through that, Sarah, I wanna talk about our main episode today. We're getting to hear from your conversation with Hope Lawrence.
awesome. I love that conversation.
Yeah, this is one that we recorded a while ago and now it gets to have its day in the sun.
Yeah. So Hope is the founder of Hudson Henry Baking Company, which is a granola business that she started in 2012. She named it after her two sons, Hudson and Henry. And it's an award winning granola. They've got six Sophie Awards, which are like Oscars of the package, you know, food industry. She was featured on the Today Show as one of Kathie Lee and Hoda's favorite things. She shares a really fun story about that and how that all went down on the podcast. And
The reason we invited her to the podcast is because we wanted to know her story and wanted her to share her story of starting her business with very little investment. It was a self-funded business. She focused on operations and efficiency from the very beginning. She believes that starting small and fully owning your region, your hometown is critical before ever thinking about going national. And she sold
her business to, I'm just going to say a like-minded company. And one of the reasons I, so many reasons I wanted to have her on the podcast, some of which I just listed, but a big one was this idea that like selling out, quote unquote, selling your business is either like good or bad, or you you shouldn't do it, et cetera. There's a lot of dialogue around that, especially on social media these days, especially following the sale of Siete and Simple Mills, right?
Hope.
illustrates for us a way to sell your business to a values aligned organization. Right? And what does that mean? And what does that look like? And what is the benefit of doing that? And I'm not going to overshare here because I want people to listen and I want you to hear it from Hope herself, but it's just really a wonderful story and one that aligns with that Baba Yacht.
energy and doing things on your own terms, not the way that big media tells us we quote unquote should build our business, right? Big and fast and with tons of investment. So I'm just super excited for everybody to hear Hope's story.
Yeah. And I will say one of the things I took away right from the like beginning of the episode, right, was how little she did actually invest in the business initially and how quickly they got to profitability. And I think a big part of that, as you already said, right, was that focus on efficiency, on operations. And I think there are some other things that she shares, right? Like the kitchen.
You'll hear all about the kitchen that they worked in. She had that going for her, but I do think that that focus on operations, including why she chose granola in the first place. I love that she shared that. That was a big thing for me right in beginning of the episode, and I can't wait for people to hear it.
Yeah. What I love also about this episode is that we get to hear from a founder who sort of did it, if you will, right? A lot of times on the podcast, we've got super early stage. We even had pre-launch founders on the show. We've got founders who are in it, right, in the thick of growing their business on their own terms. And this is a point of view from someone who built a business and sold it and is moving on in her career. And I think that's also a really important aspect of
business and life to talk about and to share here. So I'm excited. I think we've shared enough, Chelsea. What do think? Should we get to the main episode?
I love it, let's get into it.
Good food founders, let's talk about cash flow, the metric that truly determines your ability to grow your business. We all know that figuring out your true costs, your margins and projecting cash flow isn't always as straightforward as it could be. When your data is scattered across systems, it is easy to lose track and leave money on the table. That's where Settle comes in. Settle is the only platform built for CPG brands that combines inventory, payments and procurement into one unified system.
And they offer integrated financing for your invoices to help extend your cash runway. helps you make smarter decisions and keeps your business on track to grow sustainably. Head over to settle.com slash good food to learn how brands like carnivore snacks use settle to manage their cashflow and growth. Hope, welcome to the podcast.
Thank you so much for having me. I'm so glad that we finally have a chance to do this.
I know. I remember learning about you in the vein of operations. Oh, Hope is someone who is really great at operations and had a brand called Hudson Henry and is just someone you need to meet. I feel like that's the conversation that was had with me, you know what I mean? And then prior to us connecting. So I was like,
we must have a conversation on the podcast because love and operations expert can't talk about that enough, right? And it's that impact that it has on the business financially and otherwise. But also because I learned through getting to know you that you didn't take any outside funding for your business and that you ended up selling your business. And I think there are so many unique aspects to your story and your experience that I'm just dying for people to hear about it.
So can we start at the beginning? And I want to ask like, what inspired you to start a food business? Where did that come from?
Sure. So I grew up in the country and so, know, child of the seventies or whatever. And we always say like, we used to say like, is there any candy cake pie ice cream cookies in the house? Right. And I would be the one like little eight year old hope making the pie candy cake pie ice cream cookies. And so, so I was always a baker and, that wasn't my career at all. So went to college, graduated. I was a stockbroker.
I worked for, finally got up to, I was a product manager for Standard & Poor's and Fitch Ratings, got pregnant and I was like, that's it. I'm getting out of the rat race and I never want to work in a cubicle again. So I'm like, what am going to do? And so my husband's Australian. We were in Texas at the time and we're like, let's move back to Virginia. Cause I grew up in Virginia. Let's move back to Virginia and we're going to do something. Like, wasn't sure what.
And I actually looked at some farmers markets. like, I was like, okay, I'm going to bake something. And we found this old farmhouse with a commercial kitchen in the basement. was an old Ben breakfast. Wow. And I'm like, great. We found this house. It was near Charlottesville. And we're like, great, we're going to move there and we're going to make granola. And it was, was a business from day one.
Yeah, I read somewhere that you chose granola because it was sort of easy in a sense to like produce and easy to ship and easy to store. so you were thinking about the business on that level of like, what can I kind of combine my love of baking and business? Like, how can I do it? But also like what makes sense and like won't be that difficult.
Correct, because I had no idea what I was doing, right? So I didn't want to do something like cookies that would go stale or even granola bars that would crumble or you know, have to have a whole granola bar in the package or what have you. I actually was going to like when we were still in Texas and I was thinking about what am I going to do? I started reading like blogs and magazines or what have you. And it was all the inspirational messages, right? You know, follow your passion, reading all the books.
And at first I was going to do like inspirational posters. They were going to be like the subway style inspirational posters is what I was. That was my first business idea. But then I thought like, wouldn't it be great if you started your day reading this sort of inspirational messaging instead of like the morning news? Like we used to grow up like reading like the cereal box, right? Yeah.
So that led to, so the product initially, was called Good News Granola. it was, cause it was the two things. It was like my eureka moment. I'm like, okay, I'll make granola and I'll put inspirational messages on the back label. and that's what I did. So it was called Good News Granola. And that's how I got onto Today's Show because it said like, my dream is to have this granola company.
Yeah.
by a old Jeep with wooden panels and Landis caught on the Today Show. And then I got on the Today Show. But yeah, was definitely what is easy to produce and something with a long shelf life, something easy to ship. So yeah, I just went with granola.
Okay, so you started in 2012, from what I understand, selling at the City Market in Virginia under the brand Good News Granola, I'm assuming. You get onto the Today Show, and from what I understand, at some point around there, you were on the shelves of Whole Foods in the mid-Atlantic region. Can you help me understand the timeline?
there and were you still good news granola or did you switch to Hudson Henry?
Correct. So we were Good News Granola for probably the first two years. And so now whenever I talk to entrepreneurs, like, make sure you check your trademark. Because I did the trademark search as Good News Granola, the whole phrase. And nothing came up, of course. But there was a Good News candy bar. So I was Good News Granola for probably the first two years. And then finally did the trademark search. And the attorney was like, you can't be Good News Granola. There was a Good News Granola.
candy bar from like the 1950s. And so by then, but it was always Hudson Henry Baking Company as the company name, Good News Granola as the brand name. Gotcha. Anyway, so we did the switch around year two, but we started selling at the Charlottesville city market in October, 2012, month six, Whole Foods, just the Charlottesville store. And then month 10, the Today Show. Wow.
Okay.
Wow. And the Today Show, did you have like a PR person? Were you actively trying to get onto the Today Show? Did they just find you? How does that happen?
It was a great story and it's a great service. still is out there. So there's a company called Ten Shingle, T-I-N and then the word Shingle. And it's a DIY PR company, right? Because I couldn't afford PR. And it's fantastic. So it's one of those services that have the different publishers or editors of all the different magazines, right? So you're basically paying for those contacts.
but how they did it is they still have this wonderful service called the Pitch Whisperer Service. And they would read my pitch and edit it for me. And they wouldn't give you the Today Show contact straight away. Basically you have to, or at the time, prove yourself to us that you have a good product and your pitches are great and things along those lines. So I worked with them for a couple of months. We got into a couple of different magazines and then I'm like, great, I want a pitch.
the Today Show and that was in July. And so that would have been July of 2013, I guess. And I was, I was completely confident that I would get a spot, right? So we were going to the beach. I'm like, Oh my gosh, I can't go to the beach. Like we're going to get on Today Show like next week or whatever. And so I sent the granola to the producer of Kathie Lee and Hoda for their favorite things.
And it was just a neat email pitch and she received the pitch and she's like, great, send the granola. So I FedEx the granola overnight. Like two days later, she emailed great granola. Love it. Like my kids love it. Said nothing about wanting to be on the show. So then you start the follow-up, right? So then it's like, emailed a week later. was like, can I send you more granola? Like what, any information you need or whatever. Nothing, nothing. Love the granola. It's great.
Uh, so that went on, probably, I don't know, I probably emailed her three or four times and nothing was ever said. Nothing was said. And then September, I think it was September 10th at the time at the old farmhouse that we bought, we had a bed and breakfast. had little cabins on the property. Someone had stayed in our cabins. She called to say that she had left her boots in our cabin and she was talking to my husband. I was already up.
down in the basement making granola. And she's like, I left my boots in your cabin and I think your granola is on Kathy Lee and Hoda's desk. And we're like, my gosh. And I thought, so I had, I thought I had missed the segment. I guess it like, it showed differently in different areas or whatever. And like my friends from New York started calling because it had already aired in New York.
And then it aired in Virginia. I think it aired at 10 o'clock in the morning or something in Virginia. And yeah, so we had no idea that it was gonna happen. our online sales, because again, it's only 10 month in business, our online sales quadrupled. And we had customers who purchased from seeing it on the Today Show that purchased for the next 10 years. It was amazing.
Yeah, it was amazing. mean, it was, was, yeah.
Yeah. Fantastic. Was it like an no moment when you saw the orders rolling in or were you prepared and you were like, we got this?
We were okay. again, we were still small scale. So even so I say quadruple, I can't remember. I think the order count was maybe like 120 orders. It wasn't thousand. And the segment is still out there. You can find it on YouTube. I think maybe she said the name of the company. She read the back of the...
label she's about, you wanting to get on the Today show. It was Kathleen Lady. It's super funny because she says, this guy sent me this granola. And then off stage they're yelling like, woman. And then she, and the teleprompter's not working. She's like, you know, doing the teleprompter. And then she says this guy again. And then someone else stage yells, Hope Lawrence. And then she's like, I mean, it was like, you get what you get, right?
Yeah. But it was pretty amazing.
That's amazing. That's awesome. So PR platform helps you get to your dream of being on the Today Show. You're selling in Whole Foods stores. And it sounds like you're selling direct into Whole Foods. You're not dealing with distribution when you're in that local foraging kind of thing. what point, is there something else I read, is that at some point you...
were limited by the amount of granola that you could actually create because you were doing it alone for a while, it sounded like.
Absolutely. So, even when I had staff. So I think I hired my first employee.
I mean, I didn't even get like a proper oven until probably like month six as well. Like I had like literally a single oven, like that you would have at home. Right. Yeah. And then a bakery in our town went out of business and I bought a double stack. Like from the 1970s, even when we had employees, like 10 years later, we used to joke like, this is the week we're going to catch up. Like we are going to get ahead.
That's me. Yeah.
You know, the first couple of years and we could, we took on staff pretty quickly. So we went from like one employee to two or three employees. And then by the time we sold the business, just to jump ahead, we had like maybe 12 part-time employees, baking four days a week, 6 a.m. to like 1 p.m. But we rarely had back stock, right? So we, we sold.
everything we made in a given week. Sometimes, I we had a bit of backstop towards the end, obviously, but we would just, at the beginning, like we would end on a Friday and there was still a list of orders that we didn't fill, right? So we would try to order, I mean, try to fill an order, you know, like within a week or so. So yeah, I couldn't make enough. We couldn't make enough granola.
Yeah. May I ask how much of an investment you personally made into the business to get it up and running? Obviously, you have a home that's got a bit of a setup in it that you could utilize in the beginning, packaging and all of the things that you need up front, can you give us a sense of what that looked like?
Sure. So, and, and this is the part when people are like, no, that can't be true. But so we, I probably put, I think I put in $4,000. Yeah. And granted, but I had a, mean, I had a commercial kitchen in the basement, right? So I had a triple sink. had a, as I said, it was just a regular oven with a cooktop and I had a fridge, I had a freezer. So we were, as I said, like we were pretty lean. So I paid for.
logo and label design, but not much. And then kind of did everything myself, right? It was a lot of like, live and learn and figure things out and ask people questions or what have you. And then, we were for the first year, I can honestly say like, I did not take a penny out of the business.
Okay.
everything went back into the business, right? We used to say like, if it costs money, we're not doing it, right? Like as a family, we were like all in and it was like, it was a tough slog the first year. And then, I guess I probably started taking a draw in the second year and then the company paid back that 4,000 investment, but we never took on debt. We never took an investment. We were profitable from
Like the six month mark. within the first six months, we paid back ourselves that 4,000 and then we profit.
Yeah.
That's amazing. I think it's really inspirational. And even though, you know, part of your story is that, you know, our home had this commercial kitchen in it. You know, we had one other set of founders, they were sisters on the show a while ago now. And they talked about like their scrappiness of, know, we needed new equipment, but we didn't go buy new equipment. We bought used equipment. We hunted on Craigslist. You know what I mean? We really tried to keep our costs down.
the same reasons it's like they understood what they could afford and they didn't want to take on debt or anything and they did it and they're doing it, is so cool. So you're selling at Whole Foods, you're selling on Shopify. What does the balance look like in terms of how much are you selling in that wholesale sales channel versus direct to consumer?
Sure. So towards the end, and I would guess it was probably, it was probably more wholesale at the beginning, right? Even though...
Like getting on the Today Show definitely helped online sales, but at the end it was 75 % wholesale, 25 % Shopify, and then 5 % Amazon, right? So maybe it was 30 % between online and Amazon. We didn't do much with Amazon. And just going back to your point about profitability, I don't know. think, and this is something that I think the industry is struggling with.
I mean, I couldn't imagine not being profitable, right? Like this is how, this was our family's like only source of money. Like my husband and I, like we didn't have other jobs. So this was it. And so I know there's another way, there's another path, right? Like you can't take on investment, can't take on debt and you're not really profitable, but your company's growing much quick, much more quickly perhaps.
That was never our thing. I mean, you would almost call it like a lifestyle business and absolutely on buying you like all of our equipment was used, right? I think it was only when we moved. we were in the basement for four years and then we moved to what I call like a proper commercial space. So we moved 10 miles to the Food Lion shopping center near us and got 2,500 square feet.
in like a strip mall beside a hairdresser type thing. And then, then we bought new ovens. was the only new stuff we bought.
What's going through my mind right now is, and as you said, so maybe in the earlier days, there might have been a little bit more D to C and then it transitioned to the percentages that you mentioned in terms of wholesale really being the majority of where the product went. But I'm thinking about, $4,000 invested in the business, that's paid back, the business is profitable, and you're selling over time more and more wholesale.
And what typically happens is margins on wholesale are so small, even sometimes direct to wholesale, that people, founders aren't able to sustain, right? So in my mind, I'm thinking to myself, you had to have margins that were good even at that wholesale level, that they had to be high enough to help you maintain a positive cashflow to continue to pay yourself, to invest in the business, to be able to purchase ovens.
And going back to what I mentioned in the beginning of the episode, I can only imagine that operations and how you manage your operations was key in doing this successfully.
Right, right, all those things. So we were pretty lean operationally, like very efficient. I only had five flavors and those five flavors of granola were made with maybe like 14 ingredients. So there was a lot of overlap. there was pecans, everything had like kind of the same base and then the nut change. So there was pecan, walnut, cashew, pistachio.
Okay.
And then pecan and chocolate was literally the pecan and add some chocolate chips in. So lean there and then the margins. Like I started with in my mind, and I don't know if this is still correct. So in my mind, you're supposed to have 60 % gross margin, right? Yeah, which I was pretty close to. I wasn't, I was probably, don't know, like 50 % margin. So we were.
I'd love that.
$7.99 was our suggested retail. Most of the stores did like $8.99. So $7.99 or $8.99. The wholesale price was $5.50. the store paid shipping. Granola in a bag with rent and employees. Like $2.50 to $2.75 a bag maybe.
So interestingly, so you would be at 250 selling at 550, right? You're on the right, you're higher than 50%. And if you're including rent in that, which oftentimes I don't, I kind of consider that an operating expense, you would have been above 50 % margin on that. And that's with the blend of wholesale and direct to consumer, which is like, that's something that we...
I'll say we preach to the listeners here is that having a gross margin, what we call a blended gross margin, so across all channels for the business as a whole of greater than 50 % reduces your reliance on debt. It reduces your need to take on debt in the business and actually enables you to create a business where you have positive cash flow. And I was really hoping that you would say, provide that level of detail for people.
Because especially in today's environment, now that we've seen that like heavy investment in CPG, you know, from folks who were previously in the tech world or what have you, that has gone away. It's expensive to borrow money, right? And so now more than ever, we need to be focusing on the profit margins. We always should have been, right? But now it's like other people are sort of catching on too. And so to hear you say like,
bootstrapped it in the beginning. We invested some money, but nothing. I mean, it's a lot of money for a lot of people, $4,000, right? But if you can scrape it together, you can do something. And then when we talk about building a business on your own terms, what we're talking about is saying, also what you said, this is a family business. We need this to make money. So what are the margins need to be? How do we need to structure this thing so that we can generate positive cash flow and make this thing work? Because
as so many other people in your position would say like, have no other choice, right? Like we have to.
Right. So now that I've sold the business and I coach clients through our small business development center, and I call it pricing for profitability. Like, are your prices correct? Do you know your costs? Are you actually profitable? And I mean, that's so tough with...
with so many folks, right? Like you either don't want to look at your numbers because you're afraid of what it's going to tell you, or you don't know how to do the numbers, or you just start off wrong, right? Like when I set up my pricing, I basically looked at like other comparable products and like, okay, well, what are they selling for? But I had no idea what my cost of goods was when I first started out. And then I also, a couple of things that you said, so,
We definitely built the business that was right for us. Like David, my husband and I used to say like, the business could be this big and like stretch out our arms. But again, the kids were two and five, right? And then we were older parents and that the, the family life, the boys were so important, right? Like we didn't want to grow huge and you know, bring on a lot of stress. didn't use a distributor until.
probably year seven. Okay, we got on the so we built up to I think it was about 12 Whole Foods, right? So those were the days when you just went and I don't know if you still do it this way, but we would go from store to store, right? So we started with the Charlotte Spill. And then we got into short pump in Richmond, which is near us. Virginia Beach, DC, just going store to store. Yeah. And I talked to
Yeah.
And it was, we were in bags and we were in bulk and in Charlotte school, were the number one selling product in the bulk and candy section. And I talked to someone, I was like, I want to get on the planet gram. Like that was my big dream. I want to get on the planet gram. And so they introduced, said, well, this is what you do. Like call, you know, write this woman, she's the regional person. Like she's that decision maker. And.
Amazing.
Yeah.
And so we went after that for like a year or two and then literally out of the blue, not that woman she had left, someone else came in, he emailed one day and said, we want to bring you in for the whole mid Atlantic. Pick your distributor. And so that was the first time. And literally we only use that distributor for Whole Foods. We didn't do any.
Yeah.
I mean, I think they did a few other stores that they just put us in, but it was 99 % Whole Foods. And that was the only district. So we never paid, like we never paid slotting fees. We never had a broker. We just did everything ourselves.
Yeah.
Yeah. And I think that the store to store in Whole Foods is not a thing really anymore in most areas. I think you can get into like a single store or like a couple of stores in an area. You know what I mean? But yeah, it definitely looks a bit different now. The other thing I want to touch on that you're saying, though, is like so many people think you have to find the distributor, get a distributor and then kind of grow from there. But I definitely still believe in the idea of
going to the right customers, the right stores and selling your product there and being so successful that then you grow and then the distributor comes. And I was just speaking to someone yesterday, in fact, had a nationwide product that was sold nationwide. They had worked with a couple of different distributors and she sold her business but using her words, she said it was a fire sale.
They were cashflow negative for a long time. They could not figure out how to change that given where they were selling, how they were selling, how far they were distributing. And so they sold the business. And what she said in retrospect was if I believe that if we had not grown wide and instead had grown deep in our state, maybe into our neighboring state eventually, we would probably still be in business. And I just...
I don't think that that message can be said enough times or loud enough for people. I don't think there's anything wrong with aspiring to be national, but the pace at which you do it or you feel like you need to do it, you know what I mean? And the path, I think it really does need to be unique to your situation and you have to be tuned into the finances to know if it will work for you.
You know, and it sounds like your brand would have been considered a regional brand for all intents and purposes. Is that right? Yeah.
Yep. Definitely. So we were primarily on the East coast. had a bit in the Midwest with plum markets. there was like seven plum markets. Someone used to order off the West coast and we will always cringe because you know, the shipping to California or wherever it was, was like, my gosh, like just by California granola. And I remember like two things that's really like stuck with me and helped me.
someone said, there's nothing wrong with being a regional business. And that's very much what I was like, fine. don't, not, I'm not, I never aspired to be a national brand. Right. And then the other one was like, when you first start, and I tell people that I talk to now, so when you first start, think about a 200 mile radius around where you are.
and saturate those 200 miles. And I guess it depends on where you live. Like I was pretty lucky. So I had Charlottesville, Richmond, plenty of businesses between those two. go up towards DC and really saturate those markets. And we pretty much did, right? We got into talking about like how Whole Foods has changed. Wegmans, we talked to Wegmans because Wegmans was coming to Virginia for the first time really.
And that was Charlottesville, Richmond, and I forget what the third was. And so it was kind of the same conversation. So they reached out and, they said, you know, you have to use a distributor. And I totally dragged my feet on responding to them and file. mean, the guy was very nice and he's like, you know, kind of why are you dragging your feet? And I was like, I don't want to use a distributor. And he's like, great, I'll bring you in to these three stores as direct store delivery, but.
you're only going to get those three stores rather than, you know, other stores with us, Wegmans. But again, for us, that was plenty, right? similar to what you're saying, I always tell people like build your business, right? Like be proud of what you're building and do it your way and what you want. Like I, over the years, I, we thought about growing larger and we tried to find a co-packer and
Yeah
we thought about distribution, but I heard like so many horror stories about working with a distributor or any, you know, I talked to brokers. But for me, I guess I just didn't want that stress, right? I didn't want to go into debt. didn't want to.
worry about those things. Like with a co packer, used to say like, would be like opening up every package to like double check it for quality or whatever. I can't deny it. But obviously you do. mean, if I had found a great co packer, like it would have been great. And I would have loved that. Like that's, that was my decision point towards the end. was either sell the business or find a co packer because I wanted to.
I could do customer support, which I loved. That was like, think one of our wrenching factors. Like I loved the relationship that I had with my stores and you know, with our, call it the people orders, right? So the Shopify orders, I knew my customers. We hand wrote from day one today when we sold the business and I think they still do it today. Like we hand wrote a thank you note to every people order that went out the door.
So I wanted to do customer support, branding, marketing, sales. I could do that all day long and be completely happy. So that was, that was the choice towards the end, either sell the business or find a cutbacker do that. And then ultimately I sold the business, wanting to do something else, right? Like you get burned out. It's hard. It's a hard business. And I had turned 50 and I'm like, if I'm going to get.
another job or start a different career or do something else. I need to do that at 50 and not 58 or 60 or what have you. So let's jump into another story.
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I want to talk about the selling and sort of the process of that and who you ultimately ended up selling to because I that's really interesting. But I want to kind of take a moment to go back to operations because I wonder, was there anything that you felt like you did uniquely or that you really focused on that you think is important to share to founders who are maybe struggling with?
operations or not sure really how to approach it. I think something that's true for most food founders is they've not done this before or they've not created a product at at the scale that you have to service enough customers to generate a million dollars in a year, which you successfully did. So what was your approach, I guess, to operations or any advice that you have for founders?
Sure, it's funny, we actually used to laugh about it because we used to say, even right at the end, we're still changing things and simplifying things. And we're like, my gosh, why didn't we think about this six years ago? And I did have a team that, some of the team members were with me for six or seven years, once we got into the space near the Food Lion. Definitely keeping things simple, simplifying as much as you can.
communicating with your team, all of that improved over the years. We used to keep track of like how we did our tracking. So for lot tracking, so we had these sheets of paper and we looked back on it and then like we would have days that we had like.
two batches of cashew and then two batches of pecan and two batches of walnut all in the same day, which was just chaos, right? Because they were clinging between them and they switched gears or whatever. so towards the end, I mean, it took us a while. said, okay, we've got to get down to making one flavor a day. Like that would make everyone's life so much easier. And it was probably like a two week transition that was a little bit tough because we did run out of, I mean, not having a lot of back stock.
Right?
have to push through. Like we got to just make pecan even though the cashew is waiting. Like we were waiting to send out orders because we literally wouldn't have cashew on the shelf. So simplifying that so we would, and then towards the end was fantastic. Like we would have two days of baking pecan and then two days of walnut or what have you. just simplifying for the team and having less chaos for the team. There was a lot of things that
Right.
We had a system, like the big post-it notes. So I, had that on the wall and we would make it into four blocks. Cause again, we only baked Monday through Thursday. And so we would, we would plan at least one week, if not two, if not three weeks ahead. Right. So you could look up on the wall. So they wouldn't have to come after me when they're prepping for the next thing, like, hope, are we baking tomorrow? Like it's on the wall. Everyone can see it. And we baked.
in barrels, it was literally like a tumbler of granola. And we would do...
You know, at the beginning, it was maybe six barrels a day towards the end. was 17, 18, 19 barrels a day, but it was all planned out. was out of my head and on the wall. a lot of times it would change and they would like yell at me. They're like, hope you're, know, you're scribbling off and changing it on us. I think that's it. Like simplifying, getting organized, communicating with the team and really like kind of getting out of the way.
Yeah. if anything, I sometimes I did get in the way because I was the one making the change or like not being organized enough or what have you. Once we did get on the planet ground with, with whole foods that changed that routine. like when we had a, a, because our distributor was rainforest, right? So we went with rainforest for whole foods. And when a rainforest order came in,
Again, like some weeks, literally a hundred percent of what we baked went into case boxes for Whole Foods and went on a pallet to go out the door. So that had a change, you know, really trying to get ahead and have that back stock and not create so much urgency and rush and stress. Like I was all about.
Yeah.
Yeah.
I used to, we used to laugh and we're just, we're not, we're not making medical devices, right? Like we're making granola. It shouldn't be stressful. It shouldn't be stressful for the team. And so that would be, that would be my advice. Like do the best you can for your team to get it organized and simplify. Do not make five flavors a day, right? Make one flavor a day.
Well, what's really interesting about the trend to me is when you were making that transition from doing multiple flavors in a day to one, you noted that like, we might be out of the cashew. now we're not scheduled to make cashew for a couple of days. I know that people, because I've worked with them, would say, well, I can't do one flavor a day because I need to ship this cashew. How do you?
do you overcome? What would you say to that founder who's like, but I have a cashew order that needs to be fulfilled?
And then I felt that, right? Like we tried to ship those orders within two days. Like the people orders, I would try to ship people orders before even stores, right? Like the people orders and that customer support was so important to me. But also like we had to do it. You just have to push through. And even if it's one bad week of things being a little bit delayed, it was so worth it. Because once we got, and you know, it was about two weeks because it took.
with five flavors, like it took us a couple of days, but it was worth it, definitely worth it. And then once you have it, like once the system is in place, then it was fine. And we got to a stage probably where we, like cashew was the slowest seller. We maybe made the cashew like once every two weeks. we would have, know, some, mean, great weeks would be like two days of pistachio and then two days of pecan.
Yeah.
three days at Pecan. Pecan was the best seller, right? Right. And that for all your operations just makes life so much, especially when you're at that scale, right? Like I literally, were hand mixing the granola, hand patting the granola. We finally towards the end got a Wayfill machine. So we weren't handbagging anymore, but still like people were touching it at all phases, right? Like it wasn't, it wasn't a assembly line.
Yeah. Did you... Yeah, were you careful about how much you kept in finished goods inventory? Like in either direction, like not too low or not too much or what was your like kind of attention level to that?
life.
We, as I said, never really got, I mean, not never got ahead. I mean, we did, know, every now and then we would say, oh, we can be closed tomorrow because the shelves are full, right? So we had, we had pack and ship right beside where everyone was handbagging. And it was, know, the metal racks that you buy at Costco. And we used these long red boxes that had the finished goods in there. You know, we were probably,
towards the end, got to a point where we were a week ahead, right? So we had enough product that we were baking it and it would go out the next week, right? So we were, you know, one week in a year. Um, so no, we never,
I mean, we just produced every day and we looked up on the, as I said, know, plan ahead, but, and also planning for the, when the rainforest orders would come in, right? So we would start building those pallets. So we started with 2,500 square feet, and then we got another space next door for all of the pallets. And then, so when the rainforest, we were probably shipping. Maybe eight pallets at a time. And I think there were 60.
60 cases on a palette and 12 bags in a case box. So yeah, we definitely got into a routine, which was nice.
Yeah.
And it seems like forecasting is part of this process. Okay. We're expecting, you know, rainforest to order X amount every so many weeks. Our online orders average this and you you have a sense of what you need and maybe you make a little more than what you sense you're going to need and, you kind of do it there. think even forecasting that I know can be difficult for
people. But I think that's another area where like you might get it wrong, you'll get it wrong a couple of times and then you'll figure it out. You know what mean? You'll get better because you don't want to be out of that product. Yeah. Absolutely. That's super
I remember when we first started working with Rainforest and so with Whole Foods you obviously have like the promo seasons and I think the first or second promo that we had to do they bought an amazing or tried to order an amazing amount and I was like that is literally like a month's worth of production that you want.
in a week or whatever it was. And so I said, I can't fill it. Like there's zero way that I can fill this order. And they were great. They were great about it. They scaled back the order, but yeah, getting used to that and knowing the frequency of ordering and what is, what is expected to happen.
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. That's super helpful. Thank you for kind of diving into operations and a little bit of that with us. think that's, yeah, really helpful. So you turn 50 or you are 50 at this point in time where you're starting to think about maybe I want to do something else, have another career perhaps. What is the process that you take for like exploring and trying to find
potential buyer for the business. How does that work?
Yep. So I always say, and you might say it differently, but it takes longer than you think it's going to happen, that it's going to take. Right. So we, um, our situation was a little bit unique. As my husband is Australian and my son was finishing middle school, I guess. And we're like, right. Are we going to move to Australia? Are we going to stay here?
Okay.
And then it was like, we going to sell the business or try to keep the business? So two decisions were going on at the same time. And I had turned 50, right? And so we're like, okay, what are we gonna do? So we found, we thought about it. We're like, okay, let's look at selling the business. We found a broker, a business broker in, I think they were in Richmond.
I guess I talked to like two or three and then went with whoever I felt most comfortable with. you know, however much the fees were or the cost or whatever. And then though, then it's like really mentally it's a big hurdle, right? So I said, yep, we're going to sell the business. And we started working on the packet. Like there's this packet of information that you have to fill out and get everything together. My number one tip when I talk to people about selling their businesses, get someone to do your books and get someone to do your taxes.
And luckily I had that for a couple of years. So my financials were clean. They were legit. My, you know, my QuickBooks were up to date. Everything was good. And then I was like, and then I just put on the brakes and I'm like, what am I thinking? Like, this is my baby and how can I, know, how can I sell the business? And so the broker was great. He's like, yep, yep. We'll just put it on hold. And so we were probably in hold for a couple of months. Not even probably.
And then one of the interested parties who had already looked at it, or had looked at the packet said, well, we understand you want to be on hold, but we're going to make an offer anyway. So I said, okay, well, if you're going to make an offer, then we kind of need to be off hold for everyone to have an offer. Yeah, I mean, it was probably, I don't know, was it a year maybe the whole process from deciding until we got an
until we accepted an offer. I think we had, so you talk about like letters of intent. So, you know, there's a packet that doesn't have our name on it, right? So it's like, there's this granola company for sale in Virginia. Here are some light details. Like that was maybe, I don't know, three or four pager maybe. And then if you were interested, you signed a non-disclosure agreement.
Yeah.
Yeah.
and then you got the big packet, which had all the information and all the financials. And then they sign a letter of intent, which I think we had like seven or eight letters of intent. And we had three.
I think three good offers. definitely had two good offers. came down to two. One maybe not so good offer, maybe another offer that wasn't great or whatever. But at the end of the day we had, you know, three to choose from. For me, it was, you know, as I said, the combination of maybe we were going to move, maybe we weren't. And definitely wanting, like my knees hurt, my shoulder hurts, like my arms hurt. I would say it's like, it's tough standing on concrete.
Right.
for five hours a day, right? So I was ready to do something different. And I also read somewhere it said like, sell your business because you want to do something else. Don't sell your business because you're sick of it and you don't want to do it anymore because that's a very different mindset. So my mindset was very positive. It was like, my gosh, like I can't wait to do X.
Yeah.
And it just helped.
Yeah. I think the name of the company that you sold to is Cherries and Berries LLC. And I went to their website and I could see the Hudson Henry product that's available for sale there. Still under the brand. I could see that it's still being sold on Amazon and also that the Hudson Henry website still exists. And so I share those things because I think that there are some people who think if you're selling a business, you're sort of
It no longer exists for your customers in the way that it did before, or you're selling it to someone else who's going to absorb it and sort of do something different with it. But you didn't sell to, I don't think they're like a conglomerate, it's from what I could tell. They seem like a pretty wholesome business with a niche in like nuts and fruit and things. And it seems like they continue to serve your customers in a very similar way to the way that you did.
Right.
Did that factor into your decision?
Absolutely, it made it so much easier, right? Because they were perfect partners. They had a few businesses.
in the food space. They loved the product. Very easy to work with, very easy transition. And again, like you do like, think, my gosh, this is my baby. And like, I've had this company and what's going to happen to it. I didn't have to worry about that. Right. I still talk to them. Like we're still, you know, we chat now and then or whatever. So that definitely helped. Yeah. Again, you do the business that you want and sell the business the way you want and that you can live with. think, know, I had the other.
there was another offer that was probably very similar. I don't think much would have changed. I didn't have to grapple with, I wasn't selling to Calox or whatever. I didn't have to grapple with what's going to happen to the company and what's going to happen to the quality. They love the product. They wanted to keep it the same. I think they've introduced two new flavors, which is great.
Right.
And I actually, ran into someone the other day and she's like, I love your granola. I've been buying it for like six years. And I'm like, have you noticed? I was like, well, you know, I saw business like two years ago, whatever. Have you noticed a change? And she's like, no, like it's still, it's still the same. It's still great. So that's, that's lovely. Like that's what you want. Right.
Yeah, totally. that's so awesome. And so what did you decide to do once the business was sold? Did you take a little vacation, take a break, take a trip to Australia?
I did. I did. did. didn't get to our party. We wanted to go and the boys, so we ended up not moving, of course. So we moved, we moved into Charlottesville. My boys go to a school here in Charlottesville and my oldest was getting close to being able to drive. So I'm like, let's move into town, be closer to school. I took like 10 months off and I started writing a book, which is still in process. And I think that's when we talked, like I did a little bit of coaching.
I have a software idea that I've been working on in my brain for ages. It's called, I don't know if you'll put it in notes or whatever, but it's called Camille.io is the website. And so that's still in process. So I worked on those things and then I took a job, which is the greatest job in the world with, as I said, the Small Business Development Center, which are most states around the US, right?
And so I got paid to do exactly what I was trying to do with coaching. Like I help food and beverage businesses. It's free advice to them. So I work with them. And then there's another nonprofit here in Charlottesville called Venture Central. we help, we also help entrepreneurs and entrepreneur support organizations. So it's perfect for me, right? It's, it's
what I always love to do. I used to have people come to me and actually our head baker is a woman that came to me for help with her toffee business. And so I helped her and I was like, but by the way, like, you want to come work with for me in the meantime and make granola with me? So yeah, I just love talking to entrepreneurs and helping other entrepreneurs with their journey because especially in the food and beverage space.
There's so much to learn and there's so many rules and regulations and dealing with the stores and whatnot. So yeah, that's what I do.
Amazing. Well, I think you've got a really, as I said earlier, inspiring story. We'd love to have founders here on the show talking about how you built your business on your own terms. you really are a wonderful example of doing that from start to finish. So I just wanted to thank you for joining me here today and sharing your story with us. Thank you.
Yeah, thank you so much. love, I say that I'm a pretty open book. Like I think it's important to have these stories. And just, mean, you mentioned it earlier. So we got to probably like 1.25 million in annual revenue. We were in probably, I don't know, like 400 stores. I like to say it is possible. It is hard. It's a lot of work. But I also think
I mean, a lot of people helped me along the way, like other food businesses in Charlottesville. And because I would say like, you know, what is what is a $500,000 business look like? Like, what does it look like? And what are you doing? And for me, that was big because I couldn't see it right. Like I had I couldn't see a million dollars in my head. And like, how what does that look like? And so I love telling my story because then I'm like, okay, well, that's
You know, 12 part time employees, baking four days a week, starting at six o'clock in the morning or whatever. That's what it looks like. Right. And that's, this is what you're doing during the day. Like, what are you doing to grow your business? You're picking stores every day or you're, you're improving your Amazon listing or whatever. So yeah, I'm glad. you're, mean, yeah, I think it's great. What
Yeah.
Yeah.
we are hopefully doing for others is to help people on their journey, make it a little bit easier.
Yeah, and I think I will add to that is that what does a million dollar business look like? It can be regional, right? It looks like a regional brand. It looks like a brand that did work with distributors. But again, on your terms, without a lot of the negative parts and pieces that come along with typical distribution relationships. so I think, you know, I've been saying lately, you know, thinking big can look small. I
fully believe that and I think that your business would be considered a small business based on its revenue certainly and its footprint, but it supported your family, right? And it supported 12 people with part-time employment in a company with founders who cared for them and about them. It sold through stores in your region which then generated revenue for those stores and its employees.
If you really sit and think about the ripple effect of you making granola and doing it in a sustainable way in terms of the finances, that's, I mean, I get chills thinking about the impact that quote unquote, as you said earlier, just making granola can have on a community and a region. I mean.
And it's the goal to have, right? Like you don't have to get to 5 million in revenue. I mean, it's great if that's what you want and that's what you want to go through, but a million dollar business and you're taking, you know, a hundred thousand out or whatever a year, like if you're profitable, a million is plenty for most people, right? To sustain a family. And right, we were very...
very employee friendly, very family focused. And, you know, if you need to take a time off for your kid, like, absolutely. Like we, we were, and our employees would say the same thing, like it was a great place to work, right? It was, we had fun doing it and paid well and what have you. yeah, it's, it's a good goal to have.
Yeah, amazing. Well, thank you Hope. I appreciate your time and I'm just so glad we got to do this.
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