We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Erica Humphrey a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.
Erica, thanks for taking the time to share your stories with us today What’s the backstory behind how you came up with the idea for your business?
It started when my husband went to the Great American Beer Festival. I was a teacher at the time and at home with our newborn. Sterling sent me pictures while at the festival. Among the first was of him and his two friends in their Denver hotel wearing a neck full of… snack foods?!? I literally laughed out loud.
“What the heck is that?!?” I asked him.
“It’s a pretzel necklace. Many people make them wear them at the festival to help them through all the tastings. We tried to buy them but nobody sells them. We spent hours getting the supplies and making them to survive the next event.”
I pondered to myself how these guys had about 48 hours to be in Denver and found these necklaces so important, they spent half a day putting them together. Must be a big deal.
At the next beer festival we attend in our home in Sacramento, we wore homemade pretzel necklaces. People ask us where they can get some as well. The answer was, “Sorry, they’re homemade.” This continued for many festivals. I realized people just don’t always have the time to put it together in advance.
A couple of years later, we had our second child and I decided to stay home to have more flexibility with my schedule. That pretzel necklace thing kept bugging me. Why hasn’t someone made these for sale? They are obviously an incredibly helpful festival tool!
I started up a cottage food business in 2017 and named it Neck Nosh. We developed a special tool for making the necklaces. I sold the necklaces primarily at local beer festivals. Neck Nosh’s first festival is still a favorite- Capitol Beerfest. The necklaces sold out in an hour. I had customers profusely thank me for making the necklaces- it was a riot! We return every year and have seen many attendees wearing their homemade necklaces, though it never hurts sales. They are walking advertisements for our booth!
Over time, I received email requests for large orders. A beer festival in Florida, an Oktoberfest in Georgia, and orders from entertainment companies and even hotels in Denver. From there I decided to grow into more of a wholesale business, as there are only so many “local” beer festivals for which one can sign up. I enrolled in a food-business program and was later accepted into the Alchemist Kitchen Incubator Program.
Today, Neck Nosh is double-trademarked, fully licensed packaged food. We ship all over the country. And guess who put in a large order in the past year? The Great American Beer Festival in Denver. Talk about coming full circle!
Today we have fulfilled multiple orders with Aramark for concerts and NFL games. The future is bright for Neck Nosh!
Additional fun fact: I am a craft beer enthusiast and am a rotating guest on the Craft Beer Republic podcast.
Erica, 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?
Neck Nosh is family owned and operated and the first fully licensed and trademarked packaged pretzel necklace company. Our primary customers are beer festivals, fundraisers, casinos, and various special events. When customers order our product as swag for ticket holders, they frequently come back as they see how much fun our necklaces add to the event!
We make everything from simple and effective necklaces to cleanse the palate to the extremely useful cupholder pretzel necklace titled “Hold my Beer… and NOSH this!”
For a low fee, we can add your brand to the package. We’ve worked with everything from small, local businesses to larger entities such as Knott’s Berry Farm, Toyota and Samuel Adams Beer. Soon to roll out is a pretzel necklace with a center medallion featuring any desired logo.
How did you build your audience on social media?
Not only do I frequently munch on pretzels, I also love trying all kinds of craft beer. It’s the perfect pairing!
There’s definitely a trend of sharing the moment in time when indulging a craft beer. So I jumped on the trend and often snap and post a shot whether it’s post ski-lesson, while reviewing a beer on Craft Beer Republic, vibing at a great rock concert and even the less glamourous- while cleaning my chicken coop!
The advice I have for building an online community is make it authentic! Find people and groups with similar interests, dig-in and engage. It’s so much fun and your brand will grow naturally along with the experience
My enthusiasm in craft beer has connected me to an incredible community, including The Beer Babes Family! This group supports and engages all women in craft beer and is a nonprofit raising money for scholarships and other worthy causes.
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Where do you think you get most of your clients from?
The coolest thing is people are literally wearing our product. This often brings on the “Where did you get that?” question and the conversation leads to Neck Nosh! Also, those who know about the homemade necklace trend will google “buy packaged pretzel necklaces” to see if they can get ahold of some for an event they are hosting and there we are! We also have a great reputation of communication and service with our customers which doesn’t seem to hurt either. ;-)
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.necknosh.com/
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/neck_nosh_llc/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/necknosh/
- Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/erica-humphrey-0909b3187/
- Other: https://www.craftbeerrepublic.com/podcast https://www.beerbabesfamily.com/ https://alchemistcdc.org/