How to Build a Salad-Centric Farm Brand with Kat Johnson

I’m sure many of you can relate to this!

We've all been through those big moments that suddenly shake up our lives and make us rethink everything – it could be an unexpected illness, a family emergency, a career setback, or even a surprise accident. These are the moments that can turn our world upside down in the blink of an eye.

As a marketer, I totally get how these life-altering events can throw entrepreneurs into a loop. So, let's talk about what we, as entrepreneurs, should do when life hits us with significant moments. How can we deal with these disruptions and keep our businesses moving forward, or sometimes, knowing when it's okay to hit the pause button? The key here is having solid plans ready for unexpected business disruptions.

I recommend taking time now, before a crisis, to develop a three-tiered plan coded green, yellow, and red like a traffic signal. Green represents your desired state, yellow is your caution zone, and red is the folder you may never want to open, but is there to guide you through the toughest of all decisions.

As a leader of my own small business, I completely get how tough it can be to face these situations. But here's the silver lining: having a well-thought-out plan can actually make it a lot easier to navigate these challenging moments. It's like having a trusted friend to guide you through, providing a clear sense of direction and a roadmap to follow when the unexpected comes knocking.

And now, I'd like to take a moment to express my sincere gratitude for joining me on this year's journey. As we approach the end of 2023, I want to let you know that this marks the final episode of the Good Food Marketing podcast. But hey, it's not goodbye – it's more of a 'see you later'!

Keep on growing and innovating with your amazing good food businesses!

Virginia Foodie Essentials:

• Hitting that low sales number without a plan can often instill panic, causing you to grab whatever comes your way which may not be the right kind of partner for a healthy, thriving business.  - Georgiana Dearing
• Creating your own color-coded plan is a way to decide what items are the most important to you about your business, then you get to make a plan that provides solutions that fit your style. - Georgiana Dearing
• Facing tough decisions is never fun, but when you've left yourself a road map, It gets a little bit easier. - Georgiana Dearing
• Even if it's just a short-run miniature product line, please make sure it's profitable. - Georgiana Dearing

Key Points From This Episode:

• It is not common for Entrepreneurs to encounter life events that can abruptly shift their priorities
• The three-tiered plan – coded green, yellow, and red – is used to deal with life events and business planning
  • Green stands for your ideal business model 
  • Yellow represents your alert stage
  • Red is your emergency status defining how to wind it all down
• Having plans and roadmaps makes tough decisions a little bit easier
• Emily Harpster of Sugarbear Cville demonstrated resilience and innovation during challenging times through creating unique ice cream flavors inspired by a personal life event

Other Resources Mentioned:

• SugarBear

Follow The Virginia Foodie here:

• VA Foodie website
• The Virginia Foodie on Instagram
• VA Foodie Instagram
• VA Foodie on Twitter

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“You don't know what you don't know until you're in it."

Says Emily Harpster in our recent conversation about the growth of her ice cream brand, SugarBear Cville.

And she is right. You really don’t know what you’re getting into unless you try it. No amount of planning and studying will make you totally ready (but of course, careful planning and strategizing will help a lot in managing your business)—because some things will always come as a surprise! Before Emily launched her craft food business, what she didn’t know was how fast her brand would grow, how many flavors she could offer, the number of collaborations she would encounter, and how ice cream is an all-season favorite! But all these are sweet surprises Emily welcomed with open arms, and she’s ready for more!

In the third installment of our “Year of ice cream,” Emily opens up with the challenges that come with the growth of a new brand, how she manages all the rapid changes as a solopreneur, and how ready she is to continuously share the SugarBear Cville brand through many more channels. 

It’s really a delight to witness a Good Food brand’s growth and success!

Key Points From This Episode:

• Emily Harpster is back on the podcast to talk about the recent improvements of her craft ice cream brand, SugarBear Cville.
• SugarBear Cville is a Good Food brand manufacturing ice cream from locally sourced ingredients. 
• Emily has been able to grow her food brand in part because of support from the tight-knit community of Charlottesville, Virginia.
• During the fourth quarter of 2022, Emily realized that summer is not solely the “big season for ice cream.” With the right retail business connections, ice cream can become an all-season bestseller.
• Playing with seasonal flavors and themes for the holidays has become Emily’s way to keep SugarBear Cville’s product line interesting and enticing all year round.
• Narrowing down the flavors to a standard set plus adding a rotation of seasonal flavors has become a promising strategy for SugarBear Cville to maintain predictable cost controls.
• Since one of the missions behind this Good Food brand is to build community, SugarBear Cville has been active in collaborating with other brands and businesses. She recently did a kitchen takeover with Bowerbird Bakeshop, gave the flavor of the month proceeds back to a local nonprofit, and is currently planning a collaboration with Charlottesville High School through their urban farming program. 
• As a solopreneur, Emily is still learning to balance the growth of her brand and the volume of units she can produce and sell. But she has developed systems that work for her now, and she can adapt them as her company grows.

More About the Guest:

Emily Harpster is the owner of SugarBear Cville, a very new, very fun, and very local ice cream brand in Charlottesville, Virginia. They make ice cream from scratch featuring local ingredients sourced throughout Central Virginia.

Connect with Emily Harpster/SugarBear:

• Website
• Instagram
• LinkedIn

Follow The Virginia Foodie here:

• VA Foodie website
• The Virginia Foodie on Instagram
• VA Foodie Instagram
• VA Foodie on Twitter

Summer 2020 was not the best, but we found pleasure in simple things: like big scoops of craft ice cream. In this episode, we are talking to the owners of Blue Cow, a craft ice cream business here in Virginia. Husband and wife team Jason and Carolyn Kiser offer their insights on what it takes to run a small food business, and for them, it’s all about sourcing as many of their products as possible locally. Their philosophy is one of using wholesome ingredients that are produced in the area and collaborating with local businesses to create a uniquely local product, thereby not only creating a novel experience for their customers but also promoting the welfare of the community at large. With two locations and a third in the pipeline, the Kisers are excited about their journey ahead, despite the challenges they had during the height of the pandemic. The two also talk about their production facility, their hopes of eventually serving wholesale accounts, and the exciting flavors they are working on for the fall and winter.

Key Points From This Episode:

• When they started their business, opening another location, and future expansion plans. 
• What’s in a name: Why Blue Cow is a nod to the Blue Ridge mountains 
• Jason talks about the pandemic and their fast pivot from walk-up scoops to take-home pints.
• Blue Cow’s expansion to a new production facility.
• The Kiser’s philosophy on small-batch ice cream and sourcing the ingredients.
• Small batch is really small: including basil sourced from a micro-farm in their neighborhood.
• Hear about their key partnerships with local companies and some examples of collaborations. 
• Jason talks about making small batches and their plans to supply other foodservice outlets.  
• Their most popular flavors and the new ones to look forward to in each new season.  
• How their family life and kids inspired them to fill the need for craft ice cream in the area.
• How to connect with and become a customer of Blue Cow!

Tweetables:

“Most customers are very understanding of the situation that we are in as well, trying to serve a different way and they are aware of the guidelines and they follow the guidelines for mass requirements such as distancing.” — Jason Kiser [0:06:34]

“Our philosophy to ice cream making is, we want to create a great craft product for our customers to enjoy. In the process of making the ice cream, we want to source our products as close to home as possible. If we do have to buy outside of local, we seek out the best products we can buy through our supply chain.” — Jason Kiser [0:09:19]

Connect with Jason & Carolyn Kiser of Blue Cow Ice Cream:

• Blue Cow Ice Cream Co. 
• Blue Cow Ice Cream Co. on Instagram 
• Blue Cow Ice Cream Co. on Facebook
• Red Rooster Coffee
• Three Ships Coffee

Follow The Virginia Foodie here:

• VA Foodie website
• The Virginia Foodie on Instagram
• VA Foodie Instagram
• VA Foodie on Twitter

Just a few months after our last conversation, Emily Harspter of SugarBear Cville is back on the podcast to give us the latest updates about the progress of her ice cream brand.

It’s truly an adventure, she says, to be a one-woman team who has now grown the brand by partnering with seven individual businesses. But it’s a rollercoaster ride worthy to be enjoyed nonetheless.

In this sweet conversation, Emily will take us on her journey of growing her good food brand, what she is currently doing, and what she is planning next. SugarBear Cville’s story is also a great testament to how significant your community is in growing your business.

Virginia Foodie Essentials:

• I feel like I figured out a few systems and other things that are going to allow me to grow and aim for this next phase with a little bit more intention. - Emily Harpster
• I had this idea to build out a brand that was really a platform for showing off local stuff. - Emily Harpster
• [The photographs] sent me down this rabbit hole of realizing I could focus on taking pictures of strong, beautiful people, doing interesting things in and around Charlottesville, and use the tiny light I have to shine a light on their work and what they're up to. - Emily Harpster
• These are just unbelievable people doing great things. And I want to celebrate that—some are more visible in the community and people know about it, while some are the kind of quiet thing that doesn't get celebrated as much but is still really incredible. And so I would love to diversify and build out that roster and make it really inclusive, interesting, and engaging. - Emily Harpster

Key Points From This Episode:

• A catch-up session to update how SugarBear is doing so far from its launch in 2022 and the initial conversation with the VA Foodie in June.
• SugarBear has been able to establish organic relationships to collaborate with seven individual businesses, in part thanks to Charlottesville’s tight-knit local food community.
• Production as a one-woman team with seven ice cream outlets is a wild adventure, so figuring out a system that works is vital to the growth of the brand.
• Charlottesville’s tight-knit community has also allowed SugarBear to easily find a supply of local ingredients even as the demand for the ice cream has increased.
• After trying out 63 different flavors during her first season, SugarBear is now moving to a curated list of flavors. Having a huge variety of flavor offerings, though, has helped in the company’s market research.
• SugarBear’s website is still reflecting the changes happening to this small business. The plan, however, is to update the site with beautiful marketing photos of Charlottesville’s locals in an attempt to weave SugarBear into the community and to highlight the beautiful and interesting work and life of the townsmen.
• SugarBear has a growing list of wholesale partners: coffee shops, cafes, and wineries, and from here, the ice cream brand is looking for interesting partnerships that are strategically sustainable on both ends.
• The next step for the business involves strategizing for these areas: Branding, packaging, marketing, social media, and partnerships. 

Follow The Virginia Foodie here:

• VA Foodie website
• The Virginia Foodie on Instagram
• VA Foodie Instagram
• VA Foodie on Twitter

One of the scariest (or bravest) things a food brand could do is go straight from a recipe idea to the shelf. No market testing or selling in a specialty store. It’s every startup’s dream - or nightmare if done poorly!

Emily Harpster of SugarBear Cville has done just that, and her story is a great opportunity to learn about a startup retail brand in the very early stages of development. In this episode, we speak about some of the challenges most startup food brands face and why vision and determination play a huge role in achieving and sustaining success. 

SugarBear is off to a good start, thanks to some careful plans Emily put in place for her product development. And it’s paid off so far – her ice cream quickly caught the attention of ice cream aficionados like me and other local establishments who are committed to living the good food, good people, good brand life. 

Emily has graciously offered to keep us up to date with her progress as she tackles the challenge of building a strong regional brand. Listen to learn more about the behind-the-scenes and ups and downs of a locally sourced retail packaged food brand. It’s a rare opportunity to watch a new brand grow from its literal beginnings in retail, and you’ll get the inside scoop from a ringside seat.

Virginia Foodie Essentials:

• Ice cream is a thing that really makes people happy. - Emily Harpster
• Ice cream is a little bit disarming and really charming. A lot of times, when I share with people that I do ice cream, they want to tell me about their favorite ice cream memories or a happy story or their favorite flavor. And it's a really wonderful moment to have. - Emily Harpster
• When you're running a scoop shop, you're running a restaurant. It's a location, it's the interior design, it's the staffing,  and then you have to get the foot traffic. It's a whole different way to market your business. - Georgiana Dearing

Key Points From This Episode:

• Charlottesville has a growing food scene that is beginning to rival nearby Richmond, Virginia.
• SugarBear is carried by a fan favorite over on vafoodie.com, Maribette Cafe and Petite Maribette.
• It’s essential to connect with like-minded brands to help establish your brand.
• Startups with an eye at grocery retail should consider SugarBear’s approach and go straight to packaged retail products bypassing farmer’s market and pop-up shops.
• Watching a new brand grow from its literal beginnings in retail is a chance to uncover answers to those burning questions: 
  • What makes a startup tick? 
  • What choices do startups face? 
  • What marketing challenges do they need to overcome during the first year as a startup food manufacturer?
• Having a clear vision and determination can shift a dream to a goal with an actionable business plan.

More About the Guest:

Emily Harpster is the owner of SugarBear Cville, a very new, very fun and very local ice cream brand out of Charlottesville, Virginia. They make ice cream from scratch featuring central Virginia ingredients.

Connect with Emily Harpster/SugarBear

• Website
• Instagram
• LinkedIn

Follow The Virginia Foodie here:

• VA Foodie website
• The Virginia Foodie on Instagram
• VA Foodie Instagram
• VA Foodie on Twitter

“Don’t judge a book by its cover,” says a popular adage.

We like to think we can see past a first impression, but that’s not always the case. And in CPG sales, it’s rarely true. Plenty of shopper research shows how fickle consumers can be right at the last moment of putting your products into their cart – whether it’s in real life or online.

Your packaging has to do some heavy lifting: Your entire brand story needs to be available for split-second decisions. Packaging is the silent salesman for your brand; it’s there to speak for you when you aren’t around.

In almost two years of podcasting, I’ve found my guests open and generous with their insights into the good food industry. Packaging is a topic that has come up time and again. In this episode, I’ve pulled several clips that speak directly to the challenges small food brands face: design, budget, and getting shoppers’ attention.

I’m sharing tips about conducting market research before you begin a design project, new technology that is accessible to small brands, ways to extend your mission of sustainability into your packaging choices, leading your packaging design process with your brand strategy, and how a package redesign project directly impacted the sales success of a small regional brand.

Virginia Foodie Essentials:

• Packaging is your silent salesman. Your package design needs to tell your brand story when you aren't there to explain it to the shopper. - Georgiana Dearing
• Confusing your audience and making it hard for them to use your product is never a good idea no matter the cost savings. - Georgiana Dearing

Links to the Full Episodes:

• Sharing the Joy of Pasta with Chef Stephanie Fees
• Packaging 101 with The Packaging Chic
• Scrumptious and Sustainable Cookie Biz | Julie Strange
• Reach For It! Product Packaging Secrets with Watermark Design Packaging
• Elevating Home Bartending | Crescent Simples
• Strategy-Led, Design-Driven Branding with Steve Redmond of Rival Brands
• Is Your Packaging Helping or Hurting Your Sales?

Follow The Virginia Foodie here:

• VA Foodie website
• The Virginia Foodie on Instagram
• VA Foodie Instagram
• VA Foodie on Twitter
• Work with George Dearing
• Marketing Made Easy

Your website is one of a good food brand’s biggest investments. It is the research hub for both consumers and retail buyers alike. In an industry fraught with ever-thinning margins, it is easy for you to worry that you aren’t getting a big return on that big marketing spend.

It may help to consider your website part of a complete marketing system where all communication channels work together. This is where the concept of evergreen content comes into play. “Evergreen” content is writing or imagery that is used beyond a single project. That’s why they’re evergreen—they’re perpetual.

But if websites are the most evergreen content, how do you spread that spend across your other communications channels? By repurposing the foundational text to other channels.

I get it, though. You got into this business to make food and share it with people. It can be overwhelming to decide what to focus on or know how to choose a vendor partner to help you complete your marketing projects.

In episodes 75 and 77, I’ve talked you through the ways you can the ROI of your photography and writing assets. Now, in this third and last episode of our conversation about evergreen content, I’ll share with you tips on extending the life of your website content, because your primary web pages should be the most evergreen content of all.

Virginia Foodie Essentials:

• Evergreen content is writing or imagery that you create that is used beyond a single project. The opposite of evergreen content is trending content. - Georgiana Dearing
• You definitely want to use trending topics, especially when they're appropriate for your brand, but you shouldn't spend too much time or money on fleeting messages. The core of your marketing investment should be in content that reaches as far as it can. - Georgiana Dearing
• A website is one of the biggest investments a brand can make, and your primary web pages should be the most evergreen content of all. - Georgiana Dearing
• It's very, very easy to spend a lot of money on marketing projects that end up not earning you any money later. You sort of just start throwing spaghetti at the wall to see what sticks if you head off without a strategy. - Georgiana Dearing

Key Points From This Episode:

• Evergreen content refers to content—whether through writing or imagery—which you create and is used beyond a single project. 
• Trending content is the opposite of evergreen content, and while trends are useful for certain brands and for a period of time, you shouldn’t spend too much time or money on fleeting messages.
• Your website is the biggest investment that you can make and is a primary source for your evergreen content.
• In order to maximize the return on your website investment, partner with creative vendors who will add value to your brand story.

Follow The Virginia Foodie here:

• The Virginia Foodie website
• The Virginia Foodie on Instagram
• VA Foodie website
• VA Foodie Instagram
• VA Foodie on Twitter
• Work with George Dearing
• Marketing Made Easy

One of the missions that Good Food brands strive for is sustainability. But in order to foster sustainability, especially in the field of agriculture—the genesis of the Good Food movement, we need to support the ones who cultivate it: our farmers. While farmers are undoubtedly great at growing fresh and healthy produce, finding sustainable ways for their products to reach the tables of their target market isn’t always an innate skill.

This is where Myrna Greenfield comes into play as the “good egg” who helps farms and farmers in need. As the “top egg” of Good Egg Marketing, a company she hatched in 2010 that offers professional advice to small food-related businesses and other non-profit organizations. Over the years, Myrna has worked with several farmers, and she discovered one common problem: planning their marketing strategy can be daunting for farmers.

In this episode, Myrna shares some practical marketing solutions that farmers and other small businesses can use to build loyal customers and increase revenue.

Virginia Foodie Essentials:

• The simplest possible advice you could give is to create a consistent look for your labels. - Myrna Greenfield
• If you’re doing a particular promo, you can send them to a particular landing page on your website. - Myrna Greenfield
• I enjoy being in this sector and getting a chance to work with the small producers and help them figure out ways to tell their stories more effectively. - Myrna Greenfield

Key Points From This Episode:

• Good Egg Marketing hatched from Myrna Greenfield’s idea to combine marketing services for farms, farm markets, and food-related brands.
• Farmers are the clients closest to Myrna’s heart as she appreciates the work that goes into the farms.
• Justamere Tree Farm’s label is one of the examples of how she applied simple and effective tweaks for the business.
• Myrna’s speed marketing plan fits farms that may get overwhelmed with developing marketing plans.

Other Resources Mentioned:

• Book
• Website

More About the Guest:

Marketing Your Farm author, Myrna Greenfield, is the “Top Egg” at Good Egg Marketing, a Massachusetts-based business that offers sales and marketing strategies, branding, and digital services for farms and food companies, small businesses, and non-profits. Greenfield hatched Good Egg in 2010 to promote good food and good causes. She’s taught workshops and provided services to more than one thousand farmers.

Connect with Myrna Greenfield/Good Egg Marketing:

• LinkedIn
• Instagram
• Twitter
• Facebook

Follow The Virginia Foodie here:

• The Virginia Foodie website
• The Virginia Foodie on Instagram
• VA Foodie website
• VA Foodie Instagram
• VA Foodie on Twitter
• Work with George Dearing
• Marketing Made Easy

“But I don’t know what to SAY about my brand!”

That’s a common complaint of food brand managers. As a food producer, you are probably very creative in the kitchen, but for most people, one area of creative expertise doesn’t always extend to writing.

Food bloggers, influencers, recipe developers, writers, writing dashboards and marketing experts are all place you may consider spending marketing dollars to get your brand story told. There are so many options, it’s hard to wade through the choices.

So in today’s episode, I talk about how and where to invest in writing for your marketing content, and ways to extend the reach of your budget by planning for and leveraging evergreen topics.

Evergreen content can live beyond the initial investment – evergreen topics can be repurposed time and again over the life of your product line. It’s an excellent way to the maximum return on your investment in marketing. You can learn more about evergreen photography decisions in Episode 75.

Check out the full episode to learn how, where, and when to invest in several types of writing partners..

Virginia Foodie Essentials:

• When looking to work with food bloggers, look for bloggers who are a good fit for your brand. - Georgiana Dearing
• Before you sign any contracts with a food blogger, ask for use rights for the recipe and the photographs. - Georgiana Dearing
• It's a confusing industry. So, you’d want someone who can add insights to your brand, not someone that you’d need to educate. - Georgiana Dearing
• Never consider paying an influencer with free products. - Georgiana Dearing
• A food blogger who posts on their site can help raise awareness of your brand to a new audience and provide validated backlinks to your site, which helps improve your organic SEO search results. - Georgiana Dearing
• One way to get evergreen content is to form a relationship with a writer who will develop your brand story over multiple posts. - Georgiana Dearing
• Hiring a marketing expert is going to be your biggest investment but don't let the price scare you away. - Georgiana Dearing

Key Points From This Episode:

• Explore these written content investments to upscale your website and business:
  • Food Bloggers
  • Recipe Developers
  • Paid Writing
  • Marketing Experts
• Food bloggers offer unique content and viewer traffic that links from their site to yours.
• Recipe developers are direct hires whose contents stay within your domain.
• Professional writers have different expertise levels and areas. 
• It is more cost-saving to hire from a writing dashboard over time.
• Marketing experts focus on strategizing content to drive your sales goals

Follow The Virginia Foodie here:

• VA Foodie website
• The Virginia Foodie on Instagram
• VA Foodie Instagram
• VA Foodie on Twitter
• Work with George Dearing
• Marketing Made Easy

I’ve discovered a new word—salad-centric! And I’m excited to share its meaning with you, as well as its inventor, Kat Johnson, aka Kat the Farmer.

When I first heard the word, I  wondered how can a business be so specifically centered on salad. What does it take to run a farm that produces naturally grown crops and herbs while also managing a business that creates packaged value-added food products?

In this episode, Kat shares with us how she grows and makes all things salad-connected. This conversation is a walkthrough of her ways and means as a solopreneur: from farming salad crops organically, to making salad dressings, bringing quality products to market, undertaking the standards of being a Certified Naturally Grown brand, and most importantly, living out the Good Food mission.

Virginia Foodie Essentials:

• I grow and make things that belong in salads. So everything I grow is tailored to that genre of food and eating. I grow salad crops and herbs. I make salad dressings and I also prepare salad kits. - Kat Johnson
• Floyd County is a really special place, and community is a key word to describe it. It's very rural, in Southwest Virginia, and it's an agricultural community. So there are lots of farmers, beef, cattle farmers, and veggie farmers. There are lots of farmers who are like me growing and using organic practices, which is pretty special. - Kat Johnson

Key Points From This Episode:

• Kat the Farmer is a salad-centric farm and food company based in Floyd County, Virginia.
• A salad-centric farm and food company means that Kat grows and makes things that belong to salad—grow salad crops and herbs, make salad dressings, and prepare salad kits.
• She manages what she calls a “farmlet”—a quarter acre of land where she grows her salad crops and herbs.

More About the Guest:

Kat Johnson is known in their community as Kat, the farmer. Growing food is her life’s work. In fact, organic farming has been part of her life since she first began working in agriculture in high school. Since then, she worked on seven different farms across the country and learned from many skilled growers along the way. She was fortunate to put down roots in Floyd County, where she built a beautiful home by hand with the love of her life, Joshua. The food-filled, community-centered, creative, and meaningful work of growing and selling organic food speaks to her heart, urging her to establish this little farm and food company in January 2021. She envisions it becoming a beautiful, productive, and sustainable small farm that provides a joyful life, a livelihood, a classroom, and a community gathering space.

Connect with Kat Johnson:

• Website
• LinkedIn
• Instagram
• Youtube
• Facebook

Follow The Virginia Foodie here:

• VA Foodie website
• The Virginia Foodie on Instagram
• VA Foodie Instagram
• VA Foodie on Twitter
• Work with George Dearing
• Marketing Made Easy