We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Erin-Michelle Luttrell. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Erin below.

Erin-Michelle, thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. Innovation comes in all shapes, sizes and across all industries, so we’d love to hear about something you’ve done that you feel was particularly innovative.

In September 2023, I closed a booming brick-and-mortar custom bakery on the historic Independence Square, to serve a century-old community at Drumm Farm Center for Children. A fairly new farm market space now houses our pastry, produce and meat grown on the farm, which is also home to over a hundred kids in the foster care system. While some may believe this is innovating backwards, by shifting perspective, I am able to slow the pace of production, increase quality and teach culinary/life skills to many who have otherwise been food endangered. Our innovation is bringing Drumm Farm to market, to the Kansas City area, and those who may not know of its mission, vision and importance in the agricultural and foster care landscape. We are doing so through our campuswide venue rentals, on- and off-site catering, hyperlocal farm market products, culinary classes and exclusive dining experiences.

Awesome – so before we get into the rest of our questions, can you briefly introduce yourself to our readers.

My love of baking and cooking is rooted in romantic stories of my great-grandparents’ rural bakery in Holden, Mo., during the 1920s and ’30s, the Depression Era in middle America. If you ever stopped into the store, you’d see images of Barnett’s Bakery hanging proudly near the door. My interest was piqued by family members who raised, grew and preserved food, and was further cultivated through international travel, faith, education and cuisine. It was during these years that I developed a personal philosophy that the most affectionate thing you can do for another, is feed them.

Working in the labor industry for over 18 years as a financial marketing strategist and adult financial educator, while caring for a large, hungry family, I finally took my affection for feeding people’s minds and stomachs, to Eclairs de la Lune boutique bakery and custom cakery, in July 2021, soon adding a talented and hardworking staff to meet demand and expectation.

At Eclairs de la Lune, you found a variety of sweet and savory choux pastries, cookies, bars, pies and tarts, cakes whole and by the slice, gourmet cupcakes, quiche, cinnamon rolls and breads, croissants and bagels, adding full-service catering in 2022. Eclairs was also the exclusive retailer of morfd space food – “get more from your food through freeze-drying.”

I have never been more pleased to make a professional transition, than becoming a part of Drumm Farm Center for Children and its legacy in 2023. Working in this environment doing what I love couldn’t align more with my family dynamic and professional vision, and I’m able to expand bakery offerings as well to include the freshest produce grown right here at Drumm Farm Center for Children, and high-quality meat raised here, too.

Serving the community on the historic Independence Square and beyond over the past years fostered a tremendous amount of personal and culinary career growth. Moving means I miss so many people I was used to seeing every day, and came to love deeply. I’m dedicated now, to chef-and-direct in a new capacity with a remarkable organization living out its mission, focused on nurturing and inspiring the lifelong success of kids and families.

Continuing to contribute to the city and community where I was raised – but in an even more rewarding and intimate manner – means feeding those who rent and host gatherings at Drumm Farm facilities, donate and dine at Drumm Farm-to-Table events, shop and eat at the Drumm Farm Market, live and work at Drumm Farm, and those individuals/groups who support ongoing Drumm Farm programming and resources at various other events throughout the seasons.

Our community now has an enhanced destination at Drumm Farm Market for quality baked goods, custom cakes, catering, coffee and classes that people have come to know and love, plus fresh, hyperlocal produce and meat, expanded dining experiences and even some fun animal encounters on Drumm’s beautiful campus. The first Saturday of every month, our 18-hole disc golf course is open to the public for a $5 donation per person.

Learning and unlearning are both critical parts of growth – can you share a story of a time when you had to unlearn a lesson?

A lesson I had to unlearn was saying YES to every inquiry. I thought if I said NO, to any order, to any potential customer, I would somehow earn bad publicity or a reputation for not taking on ALL THE WORK. I somehow convinced myself that saying I was booked out for a few weeks, would be to the detriment of building my business. We grew incredibly fast. I took every order, every time, in the name of progress, even when it meant working 100 hours a week, stressing out my staff, getting little-to-no sleep, spending so much time away from my sweet family, not taking care of my own health, while even losing part of a finger. I felt like being overcommitted made me, and my work, valuable. I’ve had to step back and be more and more careful of not associating my career status and accomplishments too closely to my self-worth. I’ve had to become more selective where my unique abilities are utilized to their fullest, and make referrals when I feel another industry professional may be a better fit for a project. That said, based on our broad scope, we earned dozens of industry awards and popular votes for innovation, creativity, entrepreneurship and high quality. The question that was to be answered was, “is it all worth it?”

Any fun sales or marketing stories?

While unlearning saying YES to every order was a difficult lesson, saying YES to every opportunity for earning more business I could choose more selectively, was the best decision every time. I am fortunate enough to have colleagues with media access and referrals that I would always entertain when it came to exposure. I don’t think I said NO once when approached about a television appearance, news article or other spotlight. Especially fun was making a Mahomes-inspired potato-shaped custom cake after KC Potato Girl tweets went viral after a 2023 Chiefs game. That cake, and our ability at the bakery to add potato themed items to our pastry case, was covered by local news channels and landed us on Good Morning America!

Contact Info:

• Website: DrummFarm.org
• Instagram: @eclairs_de_la_lune
• Facebook: @eclairsdelalunekc
• Linkedin: Erin Luttrell