We recently connected with Barbie Hahn and have shared our conversation below.
Barbie, thanks for taking the time to share your stories with us today How did you come up with the idea for your business?
Over a decade ago my husband Mike & I were on vacation and we decided to stop by a roadside market! I purchased a sweet & spicy habanero jam that we devoured in one sitting that same day…. I got home from that trip and began experimenting with flavors in my own kitchen to re-create the addicting experience of the jam I had eaten from the roadside market and tinkered with the recipe for years! When the pandemic happened, quarantine gave me a reason to finally nail down the recipe and send it out to friends, family, colleagues – just for fun! Many of them ended up wanting more, and started sending me venmo’s to pay me for “some of that damn good jam!” After awhile venmo reached out and said “Do you have a jam business?”….And I thought, I guess I do!
I started That Dam Jam in February of 2021 as a cottage-produced pepper jam from my home in Milford, OH!
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?
That Dam Jam is woman-owned and operated by Barbie Hahn & Chelsey Groves from Milford, OH! We currently offer 4 Ohio Proud pepper jams ranging from Sweet to Hot! Our jams are 100% real fruit and all of our peppers are grown in Ohio. We sell to 30 stores in the Greater Cincinnati area and have an online store! We focus on providing easy, accessible recipes to go alongside our jams to encourage new, fun ways to use our products! We like to say, It’s not a party until you serve That Dam Jam!
We also have proudly entered a new relationship with Ohio CAN to provide jam to food insecure families in our community. We look forward to nourishing this new relationship in 2024!
How’d you think through whether to sell directly on your own site or through a platform like Amazon, Etsy, Cratejoy, etc.
We sell direct-to-consumer via our own website, thatdamjam.com! We have been able to gain some traffic on our site from regular segments on Fox19 and Cincy Lifestyle sharing recipes using our jams! We also are featured on the Ohio Proud website, which does send folks our way who are in search of Ohio-made products! One drawback of having our own e-commerce site is that there are constantly new investments to make whether it be various ads on google or social media, or upgrading features on our site as we grow – there are always new goals in reach on with our website, but it takes consistent effort!
We’d love to hear about how you keep in touch with clients.
We proudly self-distribute to 30 stores whether in person or via Faire, an online wholesale platform that connects buyers and producers – we manage it all just Chelsey & I. Chelsey is my only employee, and together we visit our customers and do samplings at the various stores on a regular basis to ensure that our specialty product is selling and to further connect with our customers!
Contact Info:
- Website: www.thatdamjam.com
- Instagram: www.instagram.com/thatdamjamlady
- Facebook: www.Facebook.com/thatdamjam
- TikTok : @thatdamjam