Done.

Rid: Well.... we did it. Finally. We have our prices and they are as low as they're gonna get. Amen. Michael A. and I are confident that this is the end of searching for the super low price for manufacturing our sauces.  So we now move ahead.

Next comes what's called a batch test. This is where we create each of our four sauces in 3 gallon batches.
This is truly a critical stage. Because, as I mentioned in an earlier post, this is where the rubber meets the road--where the tongue meets the sauce- here's where the taste of each sauce will be finalized. Tweaked to be the sauce our sauce junkie customers will taste and hopefully love.  Oh God....this is crunch time. They MUST be better than good. They MUST be fabulous.  Will that take another friggin 2 months?

We are going to try and schedule the batch test for next week.

While we wait, we are also again on the move... I guess. We are still shooting for production in late August. Our fans are cheering us on. I'm working on designing point of sale items for the stores. Designing shelf talkers, decals for store windows, posters, etc., searching out suppliers for our spice display. Did I mention we were also coming out with recipe portioned spices?  we're negotiating pricing and strategies with internet marketing specialists.  We're finalizing contracts with the co-packer. Finalizing liability insurance coverage and costs.  Hooking up with people who have been down this road and learning from them as we go. So making a sauce and selling it is simple...right?  Hahaha.....ughh.

We are on a mission. We are going to give you a line of sauces that you will love. There is so much crap on the market these days. We are going to blow people's taste buds away! I guess you could say I am re-energized.  I gotta admit, the price thing really got me down. The production price war was brutal but we survived. Now comes the batch test!  Is ground hog day about to rear its ugly head again?  Stay tuned.

TGIS

Thank God it's Saturday! That's because my head exploded yesterday.  Prices went up on two of the sauces. The co-packers hadn't called a great source we gave them for whatever they need for ingredients. Did they call them? No.  Said they'd call them now since the prices went the wrong way.  

See?  People in this biz are amazing.  We should be making sauces by now.  They've known about this resource for ingredients since early June.   WTF rules the roost these days......

The great crash of 2010.

Rid: Well....we're waiting. And waiting. Still a few details to work out with the ingredients. But I think today might be the day we get our new prices.  We are ready.  TGIF.

Enough of that though, two days ago, my computer crashed big time.  Since I had the web design files, P.O.P. display designs, label designs, pricing info, correspondence and a million other important items on there, I was freaked.  Michael A. would talk to me and it would just go right past me. "Huh?", I would respond. He might as well have been talking to a turnip. Ya see, I hadn't backed up a lot of these files in awhile.  It was uh oh time---big time.

Well, my buddy, Randy, the MAC fixer came by yesterday to see what the problem was. I sat there like a scared child as he went through my drives and so on.  "hmmmmm.....gee......hmmmmmm....".
"Shit Randy, don't say that. So Randy, am I a goner?  Am I screwed, dead,  done... out of business?"
"I'm not sure--" Randy replied. "Looks like you may have lost all your data----hmmmmm.....oh wait!  You're okay!  Your startup drive is fine!"  I immediately went to my dog, Max, and gave him a big kiss on his nose.  Bless you oh wonderful MAC guy Randy. Bless you.

Turns out I had a corrupt drive--not a primary drive- just one of four I had in my computer. Once it was replaced, we were back in business.  (I was back in business).  I was one happy camper.

Once I had finished hugging Randy, I told him that I was starting a food company with my neighbor. He quickly told me that his brother, Steve had been a friggin biggie in the food biz for years. Had started his own food business from scratch, had worked for Nestle's. Made a verrry handsome living in the biz of food.

Wow, it seems like every person I talk to has a relative or knows someone who's in this crazy business. I got steve's number from Randy because we'll be calling him to pick his brain and to get some insights and strategies from him. When we are ready to go to market, we will need to tread carefully. There are evil forces at work out there.... we will need guidance from people like Steve.

LESSON: CONNECT WITH EXPERIENCED FOOD PEOPLE TO LET THEM GUIDE YOU FORWARD.  IT'S A NASTY BUSINESS AND THERE ARE MANY PEOPLE AND LARGE FOOD STORE CHAINS OUT THERE THAT WILL STEAL YOUR RECIPES, CONCEPTS, ETC. --ESPECIALLY IF YOU'RE NEW TO THE BIZ. PROTECT YOURSELF!

We also received a mockup for our spice display. Pretty cool. A cardboard shelf display for gourmet stores. Seemed to work well. Price is an issue however.  Damn!   It's tough to get these prices down when you're starting out because you don't want to by a large quantities of anything until you actually need to (AKA-getting orders).  If we buy 500 spice displays now, the price will be great.  But, what the hell are we gonna do with 500 displays? And where would we store the damn things anyway?  We need maybe 50 to start with. Ughh.

LESSON:  BE PREPARED TO OVERSPEND IN THE BEGINNING. SMALL QUANTITIES OF PRODUCTION, MARKETING MATERIALS, DISPLAYS, ETC. ARE GONNA HURT, CRUSHING YOUR MARGINS AND PROJECTIONS.  BUT THAT'S JUST THE WAY IT IS.  YA GOTTA SPEND MONEY TO MAKE MONEY....YATTA YATTA......

LESSON : BACK UP YOUR COMPUTER DAILY.

Crazy Dave to the rescue

Met with Dave this morning at a local foodstore.  He had a concern about the updated recipe breakdown of ingredients created by our new co-packer.  We worked it out in no time--and will ask the R&D guy there (hairnet guy) to confirm and/or revise as necessary.   When the meeting was over, I was going to ask Dave how to pronounce his partner's last name--just for fun. But didn't.   Tomorrow is a good bet that we'll get our new and improved prices.  Tonight we pray.

IF the prices are good and translate to a good retail price point, our next step will be to move ahead and produce a 3 gallon batch of each sauce. This test will firm up what each sauce will actually taste like when made in larger production batches. This is where we have to finesse the recipes to make sure they taste fabulous.  

This is it. We either love 'em or blow our brains out.   It's crunch time.  Pass the Immodium time.   

LESSON: WHAT YOU MAKE IN YOUR KITCHEN AT HOME AINT GONNA TASTE THE SAME AS SOMETHING COOKED IN A HUGE 100 GALLON KETTLE.   THE TRICKY PART IS GETTING IT AS CLOSE AS POSSIBLE.

Stay tuned:

Waiting for our co-packing prices

Rid:  Just a quick bit of news while we wait for our new low prices from our co-packer...
Our company, Lizbeth Lane Cuisine is also getting ready to sell a collection of hard to find spices that are sold in RECIPE SIZED portions! No need to buy a whole jar of some weird spice for $8 when all you need is a teaspoon! Our spices will be sold in gourmet food stores and on our site in 2 tsp. pouches.  Cool, huh?  This idea all came about when I needed a spice for a recipe I was trying. It called for 1 tsp. of Tumeric. I went to the store--saw what a jar cost and said, "fuhhhhget it". Im not spending that kind dough for a spice I'll use maybe twice in my lifetime.  That's when I had that "aha" moment. Michael and I agreed this was something to pursue.  What do you think? Leave a comment.

So, we are working with crazy Dave ( the guy who isn't sure how to pronounce his partner's name) to bring these recipe portion spices to the market.  Stay tuned....

Related articles

How Can I Make My Own Pumpkin Pie Spice? (brighthub.com)

Herb Health: Exploring the World of Herbs & Spices (lifescript.com)

7 Healthy Indian Recipes (lifescript.com)

And now the real story…

Michael A. here. Yes, Mr. Calm, the Suit, the sane one in the partnership. Well, that’s not completely true as I’m sure time will reveal. Just ask anyone who knows me.

But anyway, back to the “story”.

Back in the fall of ‘09 I suddenly became unemployed from my job as the COO of a healthcare company. No the business wasn’t suffering in the economic downturn (its healthcare!) and no I didn’t F-up or steal the petty cash. It was all about personality, ego, narcissism, etc... And none of it mine. Maybe someday I’ll tell you all about it. After 30 ish years in healthcare I decided to take some time and recharge my batteries, spend time with the kids, maybe reinvent myself? When we first told the kids I had lost my job, “Dad, you got fired?!?!?” And explained why I couldn’t sue the bastard “honey, that’s the way the business world is”. My daughter looked across the table an earnestly said “Dad, what do you like to do?” Wow, pretty insightful for an 11 year old! And that started me thinking about that reinventing thing. Oh, and we also got a dog because now “Dad is home and he can train it”. Someday maybe I’ll talk more about that!

But anyway, back to the “story”.

So here I am in February ’10, outside picking up dog poop, talking with my neighbor Rid. Rid is a great neighbor to have, a bit crazy (hey he shoots fireworks over the fence towards my house!) laid back (so I thought) friendly, easy going, blah, blah blah… and we have gotten along very well ever since they moved next door 8 years ago. Even more so since I got that snow blower this winter.
So we’re talking “Jeez, I (we) wish I (we) could do something different for the rest of my (our) lives. I’m (We’re) tired of _______ (healthcare, advertising, etc) what could I (we) do something that we’d really enjoy? “Well, we both really love food.” “Yeah, but we’re too old to become professional cooks, plus the pay and hours suck.” “And we really DON”T want to go in to the restaurant business, that really SUCKS.” And so the conversations went on for awhile. Then one day Rid calls me up and says “I got it…simmer sauces…we’ll be rich!” and that got my attention. Hey, I used to have a 6 figure + salary now I have a 3 figure unemployment check. “Honey, don’t quit your day job!”

So we start researching sauces, visiting grocery stores (well we pretty much do that everyday anyway, just ask our wives). Search the net (Rid’s an expert at that, he comes up with all kinds of strange s**t). But we couldn't find anything close to our idea. Actually Rid’s. He created the idea, give credit where credit is due! So we decided to start a company and give it a go. Of course, now we need to name the company. Days and days of Rid coming up with one name after another…finally I said, why don’t we keep it simple and just name it after our street? Next day Rid comes back and says your right, let’s keep it simple! So I created the name of the company. Hey, give credit where credit is due!

Gotta go pick up more dog poop but I’ll be back to continue the “real story”…

Up at 5:15AM to go food shopping?

Uh oh.... the crazy syndrome that runs rampant in the food biz might be working its way into my life. I got up about an hour ago (5:15AM) in order to be one of the first people to visit the new Wegman's foodstore in Malvern, PA. This store is HUGE. They have even got a pub/restaurant in the place so the husband can throw down a few beers while the missus shops! Movies for kids, too! A friggin village theme marketplace that sells hot foods, bake goods, ethnic foods, etc.
Well, I want to check them out.... after all, our Simmer Sauces deserve to be only on the finest store shelves. Is Wegman's a store we want to talk to about carrying our collection? Maybe not.

LESSON: DON'T CONFUSE BEING NUTS WITH HAVING PASSION. IF YOU LOVE WHAT YOU DO, YOU'LL NEVER WORK A DAY IN YOUR LIFE.



Check previous posts in our blog archive

Ground Hog Day: part 2

We met up with Jerry what's-his-name in the parking lot, outside the co-pack plant. We exchanged pleasantries and proceeded to the conference room. 2 of the M boys showed along with one of the co-owners. He seemed like a good guy. One of the M guys wore his hairnet the whole time we were in our meeting-3 friggin hours. He looked kind of weird sitting in a meeting with that thing on his head, like a surgical assistant or something.

Anyway, we went over a number of details that we had questions about: warehousing, shipping logistics, shipping costs, fulfillment, label printing, production contracts, recipe adjustment while in production,.....OY, it went on forever. Selling a food item is a whole lot more than just sticking some goop on a store shelf and hoping that it sells. Oh no, there's more. A whole lot more.

So, we get answers to our questions on the above topics and are feeling pretty good. They can warehouse our simmer sauces, re-pack the cartons for shipping to clients via UPS or FedEx. This issue is a biggie. The last thing I want to do is spend more time with Michael, in his garage, packing sauces with tape, boxes, labels and those f***ing peanut things that cling to your pants.

We were moving along, checking our list and actually making progress. AMAZING. We were actually getting real answers to some of our questions. That is a rare thing in the food biz. Most food people don't seem to know WTF is going on. Or, "they'll get back to you"...and never do... because they're out there making some other poor schmuck crazy.

Then came the costs to produce our sauces. Michael and I were pretty sure these prices were going to be REALLY good and lower than the first round they presented a week earlier. Two of the first set of prices were pretty good--but a couple weren't. Michael A. had let them know in no uncertain terms that it was time to sharpen those No. 2 pencils and give us their best numbers---today. No more screwing around. The owners had promised that they would take a long, hard new look at those prices to see what they could do. I couln't wait to see these numbers.... our profit margins were about to improve hopefully.

The hairnet guy was the guy who worked the numbers. He confidently handed out the sheets with the new prices. I stared at the new figures as did Michael........... hmmmmmm........ whaaa?.......... huh?.......WTF! The prices were higher than the first round! We had given them the name of a food supplier who could provide incredibly low prices. Had they call them? So WTF happened here? I stared over at Michael. He stared back at me. "Oh," I thought, "this is normal". This is groundhog day in the food biz. Again.

Then there were issues with some of the ingredients, which meant that we might have to re-file our recipes at Cornell U. before going into production (it's a requirement--to make sure your recipe won't kill somebody). We had already filed with Cornell at our previous co-packer--that took 4-5 weeks. Our previous co-packers were the guys who had messed up the ingredient list in the first place--and we didn't catch it at our end, so Mr. impulsive (me) was getting nutty now. Even Mr. Calm (Michael A.) was starting to lose it. "I'm pissed", he said. Hairnet guy, Jerry, Michael, the co-owner and I all sat there staring at one another. I looked over at Michael. He shot me a glance. Yikes! He's one scary looking MthFker when he's pissed..... his eyes get really small and its like youre ready to see white hot laser beams come shooting out from his eyeballs, turning the co-pack guys into small piles of ash. I tried to look really pissed off, too. But I'm no match for Michael A.

We're waiting on a new set of prices. Can't wait. Ughh.....

LESSON: IT WILL TAKE AT LEAST 2-3 TIMES LONGER THAN YOU THINK TO GET ANYTHING DONE WITH CO-PACKERS.

Ground Hog Day

Well, Michael A. and I had our meeting with the co-packer guys. It felt like every meeting we ever had with a co-packer, and there have been way too many. I'll get into the meeting later in this post.

First, a little co-packer history. When we started this adventure back in Feb. of 2010, I didnt know really what a co-packer was. I googled terms like prepare food, commercial kitchen, food bottler and other lame terms like that , expecting some measure of success. If my computer could've laughed at me it would've. The google folks were all probably gathered in some conference room, watching a big screen as I lumbered through this exercise, laughing their ass off. Another friggin moron wants to get into the food biz.

Finally, while talking to somebody about wanting to produce a line of simmer sauces, that person said, "have you found a co-packer yet?" "Uhh, no,not yet", I replied. Ta-friggin Da..... I now knew what the term was called and had learned my first of 11,000 lessons about the food biz. They are called co-packers and picking the right one is VERY important....we'll get into that as well, later.

I contacted some place in New England that I found on Google. They were all excited when I described what our sauces were. Gee, I was excited, too. Then as a week or so went by, I sent them recipes, they sent a non disclose agreement, so they wouldn't steal our precious secret recipes. I was told to contact some food business consultants, too. To learn and grow...

I talked to my next door neighbor, Michael. He's an accomplished cook and makes all kinds of fancy shit in the kitchen. He's into Gourmet Magazine type recipes. I'm into more of a Cooking Light kinda cooking. He cooks duck. I make a brisket. I also have a problem with authority, so I pretty much always ignore 50% of a recipe. Why follow theirs when I can make it better?

So Michael asks if I'd like a partner. I said, "sure how much money have you got"? He said "enough to get us going". I said, "let's do it!" He asked if I had found a company to prepare our sauces. I said, "you mean a CO-PACKER?" I told him about the place in New England and he told me he'd look at their website, blah blah. etc. After a couple of weeks. we knew shipping costs from New England would be ridiculous. So, we learned another lesson. SHIPPING COSTS MATTER. SO IT MATTERS WHERE THE CO-PACKER IS LOCATED IN RELATION TO YOUR MARKET AREA.

"Okay, Michael, so how are we going to divvy up the responsibilities within our now blossoming company"? He told me I was an impulsive, crazy creative type and that he was the calm, collected type--a former COO of a healthcare company. A detail guy. A suit. So, it was a perfect match-- a crazy guy and a not crazy guy. A visionary and a realist to throw cold water on the visionary. We sat in his kitchen during many long winter evenings, a bottle of scotch on the kitchen island, two brains full of ideas, discussing our glorious future working together. Getting all excited, like a couple of goofy girls. But... we were giving birth to a monster of a food idea.... we were a whole new niche in the sauce arena.....AND! we were now going steady!

Back to today...
Okay, so here we are, driving on th PA Turnpike, a beautiful yet scorcher of a summer day. About a one hour drive and we chatted about this food thing and that food thing. We were also being joined by a partner of another food company, who was going to join us at this co-packing company around 10:30AM. Im driving happily along when Michael A. suddenly picks up Blackberry and calls this guy, Jerry who we are to meet up with. They chat. Michael fills him in on the who is who and whatever, then Michael hangs up. I looked over to Michael and casually asked what Jerry's last name was. I mean, we didn't want to look like a couple of assholes when it came time to introduce Jerry ________huh?
"Gee, Im not 100% sure". Michael hops back on his Blackberry and calls Jerry's partner, who happens to be our chef consultant. Now, this guy's name is Dave. Dave is a f***ing nut job. But we love this guy. He's good at his job but spends his day thinking about getting laid or sending out "I hate Obama" emails and videos. Dave is a one of a kind guy. And I voted for Obama, yet I love big, crazy Dave.

Dave answers and Michael A. asks, "hey, Dave, just want to double check-- what is your partners last name?" there's this long pregnant pause.... I'm waiting and waiting. Im thinking this is one long friggin name! Michael suddenly explodes. "WTF!" Dave explained that he wasn't sure how to pronounce his partner's last name. Huh?

We learned another valuable lesson. PEOPLE IN THE FOOD BUSINESS ARE ALL COMPLETELY NUTS. And that is why Michael and I are going to do really well. Because by the time we get our sauces on some food store shelf, we'll be ready for the f***ing looney bin ourselves.

The meeting- come back this post later tonight.

I have a confession to make...

While sitting out on my deck last night, I confessed to Michael A. that I have started this blog/diary/journal thing. Now HE wants to post some of his own observations as well. This may not be such a good thing. Afterall, they say a business partnership is like a marriage--enough said.

I'll tell the biker story later.... first I've got a meeting tomorrow

Tomorrow, my partner, Michael A. Dernoga and I...Ridgely B. Francisco will be meeting with our co-packer out in the amish countryside of PA. What's a co-packer? Some friends ask me what a co-packer is. I tell them it's not your partner carrying a glock 9 mm, but a place where they manufacture your food items. It can be a sauce, a glaze, a rub, or whatever your food item happens to be. They follow strict FDA rules and need to adhere to all types of standards. AND THEY TAKE F***CKING FOREVER TO GET YOUR SAUCE MADE.

So, Michael A. and I will be hopping in the car tomorrow to meet with three guys whose names all start with M. Christ, its a friggin "3M" company. Michael and I will be finalizing the costs for them to produce our line of simmer sauces. We'll be cracking whips and doing our damndest to get those per unit costs down. I'll tell you what the sauces are about later. I now need, however, to get ready for this meeting. And I certainly look forward to watching my partner, Michael, do his masterful dance in front of the 3M guys.

Stay tuned....

Huh? Another money making idea? Oh my!

Ive always wanted to be my own boss. I've always wanted to run a company. I've always had a bunch of crazy ideas about what kind of company to create--Im a creative guy, that's why!

In the 70's, my life long friend, Patrick Hasburgh and I decided that a cool thing to do would be to own a "tattoos on wheels" business. We'd ride around town and every once in awhile, park in some lot somewhere and tattoo people. Problem was, we were only like 18 or something. Didn't have a plan, a clue or any dollars to do this. Oh well... we needed to do something to keep us looking ahead and feeling positive--good God, we lived in Buffalo, NY!

I'm an artist, so I decided in the 80's that along with my present job as an Art Director in a Philly ad agency, I'd start a business doing dog portraits. Computers were creeping into my life-- I had a MAC with a 14 MG hard drive...OMG!! That was just too cool. Didn't have a clue as to what a computer was going to do to help my life or make me oodles of money. So--back to the portrait idea...

I would take some photos of some ladies dog, pet the dog and make nice , then make a print, tape it to a window and trace the damn dog. I was an Art Director, not some lame purist who decided that it was better to capture the dog's spirit on paper. Screw that. I knew that if I could knock out two portraits a day x 5 days tracing and rendering these pooches, I could make a shitload of money. I didn't. I made a total of $350 for one portrait, which the lady just loved. She cried when I delivered it. I knew I had a hit idea! I was going to be rich and the "cry-o-meter" would be my secret weapon!

Her dog died. I moved. Then my portrait business died, too.

Back to just slaving away in some ad agency... idea # 2 had come and gone.

My next idea was destined to be a huge hit, though.

The 90's rolled into my life and it was all about motorcycles. Harleys. Forget those imported rice burning crotch rockets. No way. I was a tough, red blooded liberal biker! I had a friend that always joked at my liberal views saying I could, "only make left turns". He could only make right ones...

So I had a huge idea. this was it. the big mutha of money making strategies that was sure to put me over the top. Sell bike shit! Like bandanas, helmet covers with horns and spikes and all that scary, tough dumb shit that bikers are into. Would I wear this stuff? Never. Would the rest of America's leather-clad bikers wear this crap? You bet. Did my friggin brainstorm work?

I'll let you know. I will also tell you about all those lessons learned from selling "unique" biker shit.