We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Alexa Hesse a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.

Hi Alexa , thanks for joining 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.

There’s no doubt that becoming a business owner takes a lot of grit. When I first started Yummy Lotus, it was just with a dream of wanting to work for myself and a passion for food and people. Never did I really think about the hours of building websites, tracking expenses and research it would take to find the resources I needed. I’ve created box designs, had to find people to outsource work to, built community connections and wholesale accounts. I’ve had to be vulnerable and be juried to join events. All things that when I mixed up that first batch, I just hoped someone would buy.

The first batches of jam I made using a little electric automatic jam machines that only made 12-20 jars. Now we use 40 Quart kettles and run 4 at a time to make 300-350 jars per week. Moving to bigger batch quantities meant sourcing larger quantities of fruit and pepper, more man power to cook, fill and can. The logistics of storage, transportation and the most critical, adjusting recipes for volume increases. These are all hurtles that happen behind the scenes and rarely get spoken about.

Sometimes it’s hard to be vulnerable when we are here to sell you something. A product that we believe in and put a ton of work into to perfect but we have not been here before. Each step of the growth process is new and while super exciting, full of fear and unknown. It’s constant learning and hours of research.

What I do know, is that I love what I do and that I get to share it with the world. So while there is still tons of growth to come and even more learning and experimenting, I’m honored to have so many people along this journey with us!

As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your back background and context?

My name is Alexa Hesse and I have a background in the service industry working FOH and in catering for 10 years. In 2016 i translated all those acquired skills to now own and run, Yummy Lotus.

Here at Yummy Lotus we make gourmet pepper jams. They are small batch crafted, vegan and gluten free. We use only the freshest ingredients and keep the recipes simple so you know exactly what you’re putting into your body.

Our goal is to bring people together with good food. Jam is such a good medium for that because it’s so great on so many things! You can enjoy it as soon as you wake, add it to a charcuterie board, and use it as a flavor additive in all your cooking! It’s so versatile and so much fun creating unique flavors that are ready to use when you need them.

We offer 8 flagship flavors and rotate seasonal flavors throughout the year. When we create a flavor, we want it to have an evolutionary experience that flows from one flavor to the next, coming together in perfect harmony at the end. We specifically use different ingredients (peppers and fruit) in each of our jams so each jar is completely different and it’s own unique experience.

How’d you build such a strong reputation within your market?

I think a lot of things go into your reputation and drive people back to your business. Consistency, rapport, accessibility.

When people purchase our products, they are purchasing consistency. When we cook, we taste test during multiple stages so our end product always tastes the same.

Customer service and an enjoyable experience is forefront in our business model. There is nothing worse when you spend your hard earned money and feel unappreciated and mistreated. We work really hard to make every person we interact with feel special and valued.

We are always finding new/more ways to reach our customers because the easier it is to get the products you want, the more likely you are to purchase them!

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

The best source of new customers for us has been farmers markets! It gives us real time feedback and genuine face to face interactions. We get to offer samples of our products and hear what our customers are looking for and I absolutely love every second of it!

Contact Info:

• Website: www.yummylotus.com
• Instagram: @yummylotus
• Facebook: www.Facebook.com/Yummylotusjam

Image Credits
@jennaloevaphotography