Specialty Food Magazine is the leading publication for retailers, manufacturers and foodservice professionals in the specialty food trade. It provides news, trends and business-building insights that help readers keep their businesses competitive.
Issue link: https://specialtyfoodmagazine.epubxp.com/i/102355
BRAND SPOTLIGHT "They are a benchmark for specialty food," Erickson says of the decades-old institution. "Since Murray's picked us up, every cheese shop opening or looking for European-type products calls us." While demand was high, Erickson was cautious about where she could sell her product while being realistic about how much her team—which at any given time might include her mom, dad, herself and one other staff member—could produce. "We didn't seek customers," she says, explaining that word of mouth was their only marketing. "We wanted to support the customers we had before seeking new ones." Erickson's foodservice background continued to help. Boat Street quickly found a distributor in Oregon (then called Provista, which recently sold). "As a restaurateur and chef, I had a lot of experience buying for the restaurant and experience with the type of distributor I wanted," she explains. "I wanted to work with people who cared about food. People who loved something and get behind it to sell it." Growing Pains For the first two years after starting the business, Erickson's team pickled in the restaurant kitchen after the consultant helped them get USDA organic certification. "We took a class to have the restaurant kitchen certified. Without having a kitchen, I don't know if any of this would have been possible," Erickson admits. She could be found pickling on Sundays and Mondays and in the early mornings before the restaurant opened. "It was nice to be able to make small batches, but exhausting. We were heaving hot, boiling things and hand-filling the jars," she says. "We were able to be careful about the quality." As the business grew, Erickson's time was limited because she was still running the restaurant. Her parents became more involved in the pickle business so she could balance her work. Her mother, Shirlee, a retired bookkeeper, came out of retirement to handle the business and accounting sides of Boat Street Pickles, while her father began (and continues) to help with management, demos and shipping. Even with her parents' help, Erickson knew she needed to find a separate facility to make her pickles. "To make them in the restaurant was great, but labeling by hand, cleaning by hand, storing by hand and shipping from there was not going to be possible," she says. "But we kept coming up with road blocks when we tried to find a facility to make the pickles to our specifications." This would be a challenge for years. "It's difficult to find someone who will make your product the way you want rather than the way they want it made—the easiest way," she says. "Our biggest hurdle has been with the available machinery. It only allows certain things to go through it; hydraulic pumps pump liquids and measure into jars on a conveyor belt. We don't do onions any more because the co-packer we worked with wouldn't hand-fill the jars and we couldn't keep up with packaging by hand." BUSINESS STATS Current number of products: 4 Distribution: Sold in roughly 20 states and more than 100 stores. Advertising: All word of mouth with some in-store demos. Biggest challenge: Finding a like-minded co-packer. Biggest mistake: Printing too many labels without understanding all the information that had to be included. Biggest break: Getting in Zingerman's the first year. That led to being in Murray's Cheese Shop, which led to many other retail accounts. 114 ❘ SPECIALTY FOOD MAGAZINE ❘ specialtyfood.com A Serendipitous Meeting After issues with control over ingredients and production quality with yet another co-packer, Erickson made a connection last year at the Winter Fancy Food Show in San Francisco. Across from her booth was a co-packer, Dundee Fruit Company from McMinnville, Ore. "They were fantastic. He's a retired attorney who makes interesting preserved fruit in the Willamette Valley. They use an older set of machines, which is great for us," she says of the 2,000-squarefoot McMinnville facility where her line is now produced. "Our pickles have a lot of sugar and vinegar. There's a specific time we need to cook them or they will burn," Erickson explains. "In his facility we can stop the machines at the right texture and consistency. We're super happy with the new copacker. That's finally allowed us to increase our production without sacrificing quality. We're now ready to reach out to get more customers." Future Plans Today, Boat Street Pickles still offers only four types of pickles, including the original Plums, Raisins and Figs. Because Erickson could not find a way to make pickled red onions without hand-packing them, she added a chutney-inspired Apricot with Toasted Curry to the lineup. "Now we have a better idea of what will be possible to process. We've been making apricots for 10 years in the restaurant. I knew they would move easily through the machinery into the jar," she explains of the decision. Pickled Figs is Boat Street's best seller and earned sofi Silver Finalist status for Outstanding Condiment last year. "It's a curious product for a lot of people, but they will try the figs. Perhaps they think of them as sweet and decadent so they're more likely to try." Boat Street now sells to more than 100 retailers in roughly 20 states and has distributors in Chicago, California, Georgia,