We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Kevin Ouzts. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Kevin below.

Kevin , thanks for taking the time to share your stories with us today How did you scale up? What were the strategies, tactics, meaningful moments, twists/turns, obstacles, mistakes along the way? The world needs to hear more realistic, actionable stories about this critical part of the business building journey. Tell us your scaling up story – bring us along so we can understand what it was like making the decisions you had, implementing the strategies/tactics etc.

The Importance of incremental growth is not something you can always plan for especially at this day in age. Being first to market certainly has its advantages. However there can be some extraordinarily important lessons in growing incrementally. For instance, if you hit the market and grow at the exact same time as your competitors and the differentiators that you posses within your product or business is not recognized because the space is now over saturated. Or you could be thrust upon lessons or growing too quickly and be put in a position that you have zero experience in or know how to handle causing you immense amount of money and challenging mistakes that could cause drastic issues on R&D, deliverables or fulfillment. Knowing where your competition is in your space is vital. Knowing when and how you can get to market is key all of which play very important roles in your growth. When we started we were selling out of an 800 sq ft, retail location in a strip mall. This was not the best place for manufacturing charcuterie. Within the next 18 months we secured suite B and then a year later, Suite C. it was still only 2200 sq ft and we were doing 5000 pounds of production a week in a 2200 square foot space for ten years. It was brutal and we needed to grow. We looked and looked and could not find anything for several months. We then bought an 8000 sq ft building to continue our growth journey. This was a year and half before the world shut down with CoVid. We were moving cases and then we had to figure out the world of retail due to the fact that we were only selling into Food Service. Once we landed Food Service, we were moving pallets and that is when the true growth started.

Kevin , before we move on to more of these sorts of questions, can you take some time to bring our readers up to speed on you and what you do?

Kevin Ouzts is a graduate of The University of Georgia and the Executive Chef/Owner/Charcutier of The Spotted Trotter Charcuterie, which he opened in June 2009 after an inspirational education at The Fatted Calf and a stage at The French Laundry in Northern California. A graduate of Le Cordon Bleu and former Chef de Cuisine under James Beard Award Winning Chef Linton Hopkins at Restaurant Eugene, Chef Ouzts describes The Spotted Trotter, his first business opened in 2009, as a labor of love concentrating on “Making Good Food The Right Way” by prioritizing the use of humanely-sourced proteins and sustainable ingredients. Utilizing Slow Food sourcing, Ouzts founded New American Charcuterie™ developing salami sources from the beautiful array of esoteric and underutilized ingredients from the United States, creating some of the most uniquely made and delicious charcuterie made in the world today. In his facility in Atlanta Georgia Kevin and the entire Spotted Trotter team create recipes that include Southern-inspired salami made with Black Pepper and Sorghum, Toasted Peanut, Cayenne, Pecan and Mayhaw. They also create fresh sausages, crepinettes, pates, and rillettes, just to name a few – all are instantly recognizable because of his mantra of focusing on the “details’ in good meat and making it the right way.
Chef Ouzts is certainly on his way to giving America and the South a powerful voice in the world of charcuterie, long-dominated by Italian, Spanish and French Makers. Currently you can find The Spotted Trotter Boutique Batched Charcuterie and meats distributed throughout all 50 states as well as Delta First Class flights to Europe, Independent Retailers and Grocers across the US including but not limited to Wegmans, Whole Foods, and Central Market, as well as Food Service flagships like, Mercedes Benz Stadium, Miami Dolphins Stadium, Carolina Panthers Stadium, Compass Group, Avendra, W. Hotel Group, The Ritz Carlton and the Mandarin Oriental Hotel Groups to name a few of their current partners.

Can you tell us about a time you’ve had to pivot?

An important Pivot for us happened during CoVid when we were only selling our products into Food Service (Restaurants, Hotels, Stadiums, etc) and we had to quickly pivot to get our products into the retail world. We found a Co-Packer and started selling into all 50 states. Landing the finest retailers in the country, places like Whole Foods, Central Market, Harris Teeter, and Costco.

Where do you think you get most of your clients from?

Food Shows

Contact Info:

• Website: https://thespottedtrotter.com
• Instagram: thespottedtrotter_ATL, thespottedtrotter
• Linkedin: thespottedtrotter

Image Credits

Photo by Molly Harris Photo