Carrie Stevens  - Fed Up Foods

On the Knowing What it Takes to be Successful: "When you're setting up your business, you want to make it convenient for the customer, but also it needs to be convenient for us because if we can't maintain it then we're going to get burnt out and we can't sustain it."

Thousands of pounds of produce goes to waste every year.  This is due to many things, often having nothing to do with the actual taste or health of the produce.  Sometimes it just isn't pretty enough.  So what can be done with all of this good food that should be consumed?

Carrie Stevens has a farm, butchers animals to sell and recently purchased the business named, Fed Up Foods.  This is a business that takes less than pretty food and turns it into beautiful sauces, relishes and pickled produce.

Fed Up Foods got its start in the local farmers markets, thanks to Wisconsin's pickle law. Carrie Stevens is building on that foundation to bring locally sourced, shelf-stable products—ranging from pickle relish and maple ginger beets to cranberry applesauce—to more retail shelves and customers. Discover the surprising details behind what it takes to buy and run a canned goods business, from PH testing and food safety to sourcing "imperfect" produce and managing labels and inspections.

Listen as Carrie explains her journey and what she has learned from building her sustainable food businesses.

Enjoy!

Visit Carrie at:https://www.fedupfoodswi.com/

 

Podcast Overview:

00:00 Woman-Owned Artisanal Canned Goods

03:41 Pickle Business Journey and Growth

09:04 Pasture Management and Livestock Rotation

10:44 Horseback Observation Resolves Calf Issues

13:23 Wisconsin Food Finance Support

17:00 "Work to Eat Philosophy"

21:21 Pickling Process and Variations

22:58 "Imperfect Produce Solutions"

27:59 "Pickled Beets Worth the Effort"

30:04 "Lard Pigs, Not Lean"

32:04 "Food Business Quality Challenges"

35:50 "Product Testing & Process Authority"

40:27 Scaling Production with Co-Packer

43:41 Cost-Effective Labeling Challenges

46:33 Frozen Meat Storage Advice

50:26 "Balancing Business and Convenience"

53:47 Cranberries: Creative Uses and Recipes

55:03 "Podcast, Support, Share Sauce"

Podcast Transcription:

Carrie Stevens [00:00:00]:

And I said, hey, why don't you try the cranberry sauce in there? Because, you know, muddled cherries kind of look like cranberries in the cranberry sauce. And I picked them up just that day from the Mr. Ayan Rousch from Roush Century Farms in central Wisconsin. He gave me a nice little tour of his cranberry farm. Organic cranberries. Fantastic.

James Kademan [00:00:20]:

Sounds like another podcast guest. Yeah. Yes.

Carrie Stevens [00:00:22]:

So, yeah, just a little cranberry sauce in your old fashioned.

James Kademan [00:00:27]:

How about that?

Carrie Stevens [00:00:27]:

Make it the rest of the way however you like, your favorite way.

James Kademan [00:00:30]:

Foreign. Authentic Business Adventures, the business program that brings you the struggle stories and triumphant successes of business owners across the land. Downloadable audio episodes can be found in the podcast link fundedrawincustomers.com we are locally underwritten by the bank of Sun Prairie and today we're welcoming slash preparing to learn from Carrie Stevens of Fed Up Foods. Carrie, I'm so freaking excited. We're talking about food, which is always good.

Carrie Stevens [00:01:00]:

Always good.

James Kademan [00:01:01]:

We're talking about pickles, which is always good.

Carrie Stevens [00:01:02]:

Absolutely.

James Kademan [00:01:03]:

And we're talking business. So I feel like we got the trifecta here.

Carrie Stevens [00:01:06]:

Yeah, absolutely.

James Kademan [00:01:07]:

How's it going today?

Carrie Stevens [00:01:08]:

Good, good.

James Kademan [00:01:09]:

All right, tell us the story. What is Fed Up Foods?

Carrie Stevens [00:01:12]:

So Fed Up Foods is a woman owned Wisconsin based artisanal canned goods company. So I purchased the business this past August. So I'm fairly new to it. However, it has been around for about five years. So it was started by a woman in central Wisconsin and her, her background, she was a produce buyer at the food co op and, and kind of different roles like that, very involved in the farmer's market and she saw a lot of produce going to waste and that was bothersome to her. Well, you know, and if you, we also own a farm, I'll talk about that more. But for a while I was getting produce from the grocery store, feeding it to our animals when it's, you know, there's a lot of beautiful produce, but you know, what happens to that produce after they can't sell it anymore.

James Kademan [00:02:03]:

So you would get the stuff that was blem essentially or just didn't look pretty.

Carrie Stevens [00:02:07]:

Yeah, or it was too, you know, I had been there for a couple weeks and it was okay, it was going mushy or whatever.

James Kademan [00:02:14]:

Pigs like it, humans don't love it.

Carrie Stevens [00:02:15]:

Right, all right. Yeah. And humans go, so, so anyways, what do you do with that, that produce as it's going bad or almost going bad and it's not selling? So the previous owner had started with Doing some home canning, home pickling. And in Wisconsin there's a pickle bill. So you can pickle at home and sell at farmers markets up to a certain dollar limit.

James Kademan [00:02:40]:

That's fairly new, right?

Carrie Stevens [00:02:42]:

You know, I don't know the, the history of it.

James Kademan [00:02:44]:

Okay. I mean last 10 years or something like that, I feel maybe, maybe.

Carrie Stevens [00:02:49]:

And then there's like there's the cottage baker law too. So that's a different one. Bakers, they can just bake in their house and sell.

James Kademan [00:02:56]:

Is there a limit like you can't for bakers?

Carrie Stevens [00:02:58]:

No, I don't, I, I do not believe so. But don't quote me on that.

James Kademan [00:03:01]:

Okay?

Carrie Stevens [00:03:02]:

Contact your lawyer for that. All right, fair. But for picklers canners there is a dollar limit. So Once you hit $5,000 in sales for the year, then for the year you flip over to not being under the pickle law. So the previous owner had grown, the business, passed the pickle law. So that means I now produce out of a commercial kitchen. I have all sorts of licenses and fun inspections. But that also means the product I'm producing is PH tested and I temp test everything so it is safe to consume.

Carrie Stevens [00:03:41]:

But that, so that started, she started from that under the pickle law, making it in our house, selling it at farmers markets and grew a business to where it's in retail stores, food co ops, kind of boutique stores or stores that specialize in local products. So shelf stable product that is taking a consumable product that is going to go bad and preserving it. So, so you can put it in your pantry and eat it when you get to it. So I purchased the business and have, am continuing the same recipes, getting restocked in the same stores, selling through website. We also sell it through our farm. So we have a customer base that purchases from our farm, so we sell through there too and just kind of looking at different new avenues as well. But it's been quite the learning experience we've started. My husband and I have started a business before but purchasing a business is a little different.

Carrie Stevens [00:04:46]:

So a lot of interesting learning but you know, good, bad and otherwise. Right. Some good things, some things that I'll change but it all is a good learning process. So, so it's been, been interesting and you know, little bumps through the, in the road. But you know, my husband keeps reminding me that one thing at a time and just it's. And it's going to take time. So with any, with anything it is going to take time to figure it out. I burnt a whole batch of pear sauce.

Carrie Stevens [00:05:18]:

And you burnt a whole.

James Kademan [00:05:20]:

How big is the whole batch? Are we talking a cauldron?

Carrie Stevens [00:05:22]:

Like a hundred? Some jars.

James Kademan [00:05:24]:

Well, that's a fair amount.

Carrie Stevens [00:05:25]:

That's a fair amount. Yeah. I mean, but my kids still like it, so. Hey.

James Kademan [00:05:28]:

Oh, well, there you go. Maybe it's a new product. Right?

Carrie Stevens [00:05:30]:

Burn. So white elephants at Christmas. Going to be fun.

James Kademan [00:05:34]:

If people drink Zima, they'll eat burnt pear sauce. Right?

Carrie Stevens [00:05:38]:

I mean, it's not totally burnt. It's just a little burnt.

James Kademan [00:05:40]:

All right. A little t. It's charcoal, right? Like, what is that, tequila?

Carrie Stevens [00:05:43]:

Like a zest of charcoal.

James Kademan [00:05:47]:

Tell me. So you have a farm that you butcher stuff at, right?

Carrie Stevens [00:05:51]:

Yeah. So we raised beef, cattle, pigs, chickens, chickens for meat and chickens for eggs and sell all direct to consumers. So we purchased the farm seven years ago, moved onto the farm. It'll be six years ago this fall and pre pandemic. So fall of 2019, we took our first steers to the butcher, sold to friends and family. And then when the pandemic hit, I said to my husband, and maybe I should have taken these words back, but I said, hey, I think we can sell this. And now we. So that was fall of 2019, when we took two steers into the butcher.

Carrie Stevens [00:06:33]:

Now we take anywhere from three to five steers into the butcher every month. And we do about 50 pigs a year. I did 450 meat chickens last year. I'm gonna double it this year.

James Kademan [00:06:50]:

Wow.

Carrie Stevens [00:06:51]:

Because I sold out in about two weeks.

James Kademan [00:06:53]:

Holy cow.

Carrie Stevens [00:06:55]:

Yeah.