2024 Highlights
Particularly: the Wonderful Women supporting Narrative Food
A full year of story telling has gone by on Substack now. Having started my very first posts in January, just last week I surpassed 100 readers, which though small in the grand scale of things, felt like a milestone to me.
As the year comes to a close, I realize that with all my story telling around the work we are doing to our farmhouse, the forest, our garden, music, cooking and more, not once have I touched on what I’ve been up to this year as a small business owner, which in itself is an all-absorbing activity, particularly when shifting from over a decade operating in Southern California, to a new business model based on a small island in Maine.
Many of you know that after the pandemic, my long standing LA-based farm to table home delivery service had to dramatically “pivot”. We changed our business model from delivery of fresh food to shelf stable corporate gifts shipping nationally. I have recently been the subject of an interview that tells this “pivot” story in more detail, if it is of interest to you.
Long story short, this year started with my business still operating out of the back room of the farmhouse we are renovating. A couple years in with corporate gifting, the hard truth was hitting: the problem with a gifting company is that all the sales happen at year end, and there is little activity to sustain the business the rest of the year. By January, the year-end box-packing and trips to the post office tend to give way to resounding silence. If I didn’t have monthly costs, this might not matter (I have plenty of things to do.) But I do have monthly costs… Everything from website costs to Emergency and Disaster Loan repayments (we took loans during the pandemic so we could scale to meet the demand from our community…)
To solve this “seasonality” problem I applied for a grant to create a new “Coffee Break in a Box” Subscription that employers can ship to their remote and hybrid employees — sourcing the coffee from another local island business called 44 North Coffee — a beloved woman-owned coffee roastery (and 2 cafés) whose coffee beans are sourced from a Certified B Corp: Coop Coffees. My company has been a B Corp since 2013, so I’m always delighted to collaborate with like-minded companies where social and environmental impact is front of mind! And ta da, in March, I got the amazing news that we were awarded the grant. I pinched myself repeatedly, praying that no mistake had been made, and then one day the check came in the mail. It felt very real.
Since this check arrived, most of the year was spent implementing the grant — building website functionality, new packaging, networking, sales and more. I couldn’t do this on my own, and the truth is that it has been a group of wonderful women who have seen us through this project. I want to tip my hat to them in particular.
I have been blessed to have the support of Hallie Lartius, who I met when she was a Fellow at Healthy Island Project, one of the local nonprofits we support here on our Isle. After her fellowship she agreed to support us with the implementation of the grant while she submitted her PhD applications. She has helped, with a continual smile, with everything from outreach, content creation, coordinating the build of our new website, to learning every stage of box production.
Indeed one of the most exciting grant goals that we implemented this year, was designing new boxes/packaging with the help of Polina Pinchevsky of Round Peg, another fellow B Corp owner I have known for many years through We The Change — an amazing group of woman-owned B Corps — and an organization that our gift boxes support.
Here we are this summer, when she visited Portland, and I drove down for the day to say hi.
Polina and I spent many months working through this project, which was so fun to watch come to life. I cut up and folded lots of tiny boxes to see what they would look like, in each of 4 different sizes. Finally our test boxes arrived, along with new packing tape, tissue paper, stickers and more. We have branded boxes now, in 4 different shapes and sizes. Yay: no more hand stamping.
Polina and I also created some fun little cards using our photo shoot of miniature people and food tools — photography that was created before leaving LA with the wonderful photographer Adali Schell. I met him when he went to an amazing LA arts highschool with my daughter Lily (I love working with these talented young people!) Now graduated from UCLA, his work has graced the pages of the NYT, LA Times, New Yorker and more.
And last but not least, we created a new product in partnership with La Nef, a local small batch chocolate maker. My daughter Lily, who stayed on the island this summer, created the illustration for it.
By the time our new website was functional (thanks to Maiya Holliday and her woman-owned B Corp, Mangrove Web), with gorgeous new photography from a fabulous local woman photographer (aitches.co), the PR magic had been implemented by the brilliant Sandra Stewart of B Corp PR agency ThinkShift, the packaging was on its way, and our sales assets were ready to go, I decided it was time to move back into a commercial space again so we would be ready for the holiday season, and with any luck, some “coffee break in a box” subscribers.
Post-pandemic, in January 2022, I had moved out of our last commercial space, where we had operated for over a decade: a commercial kitchen deep in the San Fernando Valley. My back room just wasn’t going to cut it anymore.
So I called Linda Nelson, the mastermind behind economic development in Stonington — the lobster port on our island. As fate would have it she had a perfect space for me in a repurposed old elementary school next door to the farmers market, where the town of Stonington has been awarded a significant grant to develop it into a “Connectivity Hub”. We love connectivity! Our new neighbors there are the Fab Lab (part of the world-renowned Haystack Mountain School of Crafts), an Adult Education Center, and various lobster companies.
The room she had in mind for us had housed 4th grade for 1/2 the island residents — and even served as the school library (yay it included lots of shelving)— how perfect for a company specializing in food narratives! We moved in, in October, after an event showcasing the town’s plans for the building. Visitors told me it smelled just the same as it did when they were in 4th grade — about 40 years ago.
October was an exciting month! As soon as we had moved into the new space I went to the 1% for the Planet Summit, in San Diego. Earlier in the year I became the founding leader of a new B Corp Network we have called the B1 Network, for B Corps who are also members of 1% for the planet. With the support of the San Diego B Local Network, we hosted a hike for B1 members, and it was so fun for me to finally meet my awesome B1 Network co-leaders Brittany Angelo and Elise Allyn in person!
I also shared a room with the lovely Michelle Hirons, founder of Higher Ring, another wonderful woman-owned B Corp who has supported us over the years with both customer service and sales. It was a high point of my year to reunite with, and meet so many committed businesses and nonprofits under one roof.
By the time I returned from San Diego, it was time to get going with gift packing and events in our new space. We made many visits to our local UPS drop spot. And slowly but surely we are getting shoppers into our new little retail space.
So thank you to all the people (so many incredible women) who have helped me this year — Hallie Lartius, Lily Piette, Linda Nelson, Michelle Hirons, Polina Pinchevsky, Sandra Stewart, Maiya Holliday, Melissa and Meghan, Brittany and Elise, and so many more! Onwards to 2025!
Great story, Jennifer! Let’s catch up after WinterFest is over and I can catch my breath! ~ René
Congratulations on the grant, Jennifer! It is such a pleasure reading about your journey and it inspires me at every step.