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

Carol, looking forward to hearing all of your stories today. Let’s kick things off with your mission – what is it and what’s the story behind why it’s your mission?

The primary goal of The Status Crowe is to create delicious treats using locally sourced and produced ingredients. My husband has been a small business owner for over 25 years, and I have seen firsthand the impact and importance of supporting small family businesses. Not only am I sourcing higher quality and fresher ingredients, I am also building community with growers and producers and supporting families like ours.

Carol, love having you share your insights with us. Before we ask you more questions, maybe you can take a moment to introduce yourself to our readers who might have missed our earlier conversations?

My background is in biology and biophysics, and I worked in that field and in corporate America for many years. When we had our first daughter in 1999, we made the decision for me to stay home and raise our children. A decision that was not at all difficult for me to make! We had our second daughter in 2003, and I continued to stay home to raise and homeschool them. As our youngest daughter entered high school I started to realize that I would soon be out of a job and would need to reenter the workforce. I did not want to return to a corporate job, and, encouraged by my husband’s success at being a small business owner, decided that I wanted to explore that route.

Thinking about things that I loved and interested me, I reflected on how much we as a family loved to to cook and eat together. I began making ice cream when the girls were small, and thought that would be a lot of fun for us to do together. This is when the Status Crowe was born.

My youngest daughter, who was 14 at the time, and I attended a small batch ice cream making class at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. The knowledge we gained gave us the confidence to manufacture ice cream for sale. The three of us worked together for a few years, until they left for college and began working for my husband’s business.

We made it our mission to make ice cream using locally sourced and produced ingredients, and we have succeeded in doing that. At least 80% of the ingredients we use are grown or produced within a 45 mile radius of our shop, and, because of this, we are Kentucky Proud certified. Over the years we have added additional products such as vegan/dairy free ice creams, ice cream cakes and pies, sorbets, and boozy ice creams.

Until 2022, we rented a commercial kitchen to manufacture our ice cream and sold at a local farmer’s market. Our ice cream was and is also carried at a few local locations. In 2022 we opened a storefront where we host monthly events (trivia night, karaoke, open mic). Since opening our storefront, we have expanded our menu to offer prepared foods, and are currently working on adding cold pressed juice.

Although my business is small, I am most proud of the relationships and partnerships I have with local growers and producers. Through these partnerships we all benefit and are able to provide fresh, high quality products to our community.

Alright – let’s talk about marketing or sales – do you have any fun stories about a risk you’ve taken or something else exciting on the sales and marketing side?

When we first started The Status Crowe, we were invited to participate in a fried pickle festival. The person who ran the festival told me at least 2,000 people attended, and that they were looking for someone to make a dill pickle ice cream. I thought it was fun challenge, so we set out to make close to 2,000 3oz servings of dill pickle ice cream. This was no small task given that we were making our ice cream 2 quarts at a time!

When we arrived at the festival, it didn’t appear to be as large as described, there weren’t many food vendors, and only two of them offered fried pickles. In addition, the attendees didn’t seem overly interested in trying dill pickle ice cream. Needless to say I was very discouraged from that experience.

My youngest daughter encouraged me by talking about the lessons we learned: we could make unique flavors and we could organize and manufacture thousands of servings.

Looking back on that experience I have to laugh at my naivety and take the lessons learned to heart moving forward. Since then I’ve been very selective as to where our ice cream is sold, paying special attention to the demographics. Not everyone cares whether or not our ice cream is handcrafted or our ingredients are locally sourced.

I also learned how to organize, manufacture, package, and deliver large orders. Over the years I have made over 8,000 3oz servings for local schools.

Can you talk to us about manufacturing? How’d you figure it all out? We’d love to hear the story.

Yes, we manufacture our products. My youngest daughter and I attended a small batch ice cream making class at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Until we attended that class, my only experience making ice cream was on small household ice cream makers.

In that class we learned how to set up and clean commercial ice cream machines, how to properly handle and process ingredients, and how to experiment with ingredients and flavors.

By manufacturing our own ice cream, we are able to keep the label as clean as possible by controlling what does and does not go into our end product.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.thestatuscrowe.com
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/thestatuscrowe/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/TheStatusCrowe/