Alright – so today we’ve got the honor of introducing you to Ann Butler. We think you’ll enjoy our conversation, we’ve shared it below.
Ann, thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. Can you talk to us about a risk you’ve taken – walk us through the story?
Surviving Covid as a business owner was a huge risk – the uncertainty from day to day was unnerving and was approached on bended knee often. As a children’s cooking school owner, I had no idea when we would see children again with no school on the horizon. Fortunately, real estate was still a good deal and as fate had it, the landlord was offering me a can’t say no deal right next door to expand the commissary space we were already providing. A former pizza restaurant, I had no intention of opening a restaurant, but with everyone in town closing, I thought let’s create a pop up space so all these chefs would have somewhere to call home temporarily. Yet, after pouring in heart and sweat and really nice marble bar tops, I decided with a chef friend to give it a go – we officially opened March of 2021 with a few friends and family spreading the word. Now, we are being voted as one of the South’s go to local favorite restaurants from a big deal magazine.
Awesome – so before we get into the rest of our questions, can you briefly introduce yourself to our readers.
There are actually 4 divisions of what is now The Edible Education group; children’s culinary experiences ( the schools – 2 in Richmond, 2 in Atlanta ( as officially authorized dealers), the restaurant – 21 Spoons, the culinary kits – sold through Etsy, and the Kitchen a la Cart – a portable, teaching kitchen that we sell to hospitals, libraries, schools and community centers across the country.
Edible Education was born out of my frustration as a culinary arts High School instructor – teens are too old to begin learning how to cook – so I quit my job, armed with $3,000 and starting teaching youth. Two of my star students and I would pack all the equipment and supplies needed for classes and travel to schools. My first year’s revenue was $7,000 – not the best start, but the second year, I acquired a grant from Anthem that allowed my teachers to go to 5 schools once a month for 3 years to collect data – does teaching kids how to cook make a difference? yes it does!
About 4 years into the business, I met someone who was giving a discussion on building mini food trucks – the brainstorming began – we were getting tired of slepping all of our wares and food with us – could there possibly be a better way? Working with food truck builders and our current manufacturer, I am the proud designer of the Kitchen a la Cart – a ‘kitchen on wheels, complete with induction burner, oven, hot and cold running water and work space for 10 students – and the best part – it rolls through any door way. Had I known the financial up hill battle it would have been to continue the manufacturing, testing, patents, and marketing, not sure I would have done all this – talk about risk and tenacity. But I am proud to say the Edible Education mission of getting people excited about real food has spread to almost 1 million people in our time and plans are for many more.
Okay – so how did you figure out the manufacturing part? Did you have prior experience?
My original business model was children’s cooking schools – but I had this crazy idea that if my teachers had portable teaching kitchens, their lives would be easier when they we in the schools. This is probably a good time to say that naivety was a blessing. I met my first manufacturer through a discussion he was giving about building mini food trucks, so I worked with him on our prototype – he literally built it out of wood in his living room. After initial marketing reception, I knew I needed a little more professional assistance. and secured a food truck manufacturer, who then got sold to a ship building company. The original design went through 5 improvements, but the patent work had to be completed within a year of inception, so it was very down to the wire on designs. I am a chef, I know how to cook, h0w to teach, but all the UL listings, wattage, voltage, stainless steel grades – this was all new to me. I worked with patent lawyers who was a old neighbor and friend of mine in Washington, D.C., so I know this was top dollar patent lawyering – but I now have patents in the US ( only 2 initial rejections), the UK ( after only 1 rejection), and Hong Kong ( no rejection).
What has been daunting us since the beginning is the time required to build each cart. Originally, the manufacturer stated they could crank out 3 – 6 a week, but we have rarely seen more than 2 a week. After extremely frustrating conversations, this huge military manufacturer was having money problems ordering all the parts needed, so recently my very tiny team has taken over the purchasing and ordering of new cart materials – talk about another uphill learning curve – drill bits, screws, heat pumps, and another round of finding money. I have tried to find new manufacturers, however everyone is still Covid backed up and not taking new clients, We are just on the verge of being a million dollar client to the manufacturer, so not really big enough for someone to care about us yet.
What I learned after the fact, that I could have applied for technical development money – to have $400K for development from someone else’s pocket would have been fantastic, but I kept pouring in my money and some from investors. Initially, investors are intrigued – this is a product they can see, my passion is through the roof, and they see the benefits – but I am probably not going to 10x their investment, so I have left the pitch game – we are too far in now and it is still just me making all the decisions, most of them by the seat of my pants still.
Do you have any stories of times when you almost missed payroll or any other near death experiences for your business?
I am working on covering payroll for this week. Yup, 12 years in somedays this is still no fun. But you just have faith and tenacity and borrow expensive money and then pay it back and open the doors again another day. Once during the beginning of Covid, I panicked and ran to the store in the middle of the night to see if I was locked out because I had not paid rent – but landlords were still wondering what was going on and then EIDL money saved us and we were all good again. If a CFO saw my books they would throw their hands up – but the potential is still tremendous with our ong0ing projects.
I think if you start with tons of runway, you will not work as diligently or creatively than if you are faced with the challenges every month. I sleep now – probably didn’t for the first 8 years of doing all this – and I am done building businesses – the labor market is really the most challenging aspect in the past 12 years of doing business. My big paycheck will come when I finally sell, and that is in just 3 more years – I will have hit my revenue goals.
Contact Info:
- Website: www.edibleedu.com
- Instagram: 21 Spoons
- Facebook: Edible Education RVA, 21 Spoon RVA
- Linkedin: Ann Butler
Image Credits
Jasmine Stone, Raisa Wingen