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

Essence, thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. Alright, so you had your idea and then what happened? Can you walk us through the story of how you went from just an idea to executing on the idea

I actually started this business my freshman year of college! I wanted to save money on snacks, and a lot of my friends kept asking me to make them stuff! After the school year, I didn’t take it too seriously for a while, but about a year later I decided to pick back up and start baking again! I’ll let a lot of my friends know what I was doing, and I started to net work with people that I know locally to grow my brand.

Starting off as a new business, it wasn’t very clear at the beginning what I would need to make vending at an event successful. I had to figure out what would bring people attention to my products without being a distraction to the show.

Once I found the best way to bring attention to my products, I had to figure out how to maintain the uptick in business I was getting! That was probably the most difficult, finding a sweet spot in production to where I wouldn’t run out too quickly, but I also wouldn’t have way too much leftover product.

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?

Firstly my name is Essence, and I am currently in culinary school to be a pastry chef. I am very passionate about baking, finding healthier alternatives, and making it affordable for those around me! Currently I am providing baked goods and drinks, and once I finish culinary school in the next 6 months I will be offering a variety of snacks from all over the world! I’m very passionate about learning new foods and introducing them to the communities around me, and being informative as to where they come from! I’m always looking to grow and where I can improve.

I am also learning about infusing my products with natural herbs and spices to provide health benefits in our every day snacks as well. I’m a very firm believer that if you put good in, you will get good out and that especially goes for my food! I just want them to taste as good as they are for your body without costing an arm and a leg! I’m studying plants and their health benefits, and once I’m done with my pastry arts program I plan on going back to culinary school for plant based cooking!

One evening I went to a poetry night at an event in Baltimore called the poetry party, and I noticed peoples vending during the show so I inquired! I found out that it was really easy to get in, and they hold an event weekly on Wednesdays, so I started booking events to vend my stuff at there as well! Honestly, so far that has been one of the best business decisions I have made!
I’ve done soo much networking and gained soo much traction to my business using this platform to spread my name around the community, and that is one of my proudest accomplishments!

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

The biggest thing that helped me to build a reputation in my community is actually going outside and advertising myself! I’ve been doing a lot of events, and a lot of marketing in my local customer base and it brings a lot of loyalty! I make sure that all of my products are consistent and held to a very high standard, so whenever someone comes back they know what to expect. Ensuring those two things has brought a great reputation behind my baked goods, and I’ve gotten many referrals from happy customers!

Can you talk to us about manufacturing? How’d you figure it all out? We’d love to hear the story.

I’ve been baking for years, so it’s only right that I continue to be the one making my products. I do a lot of shopping at my local stores that help my community, so I don’t have any vendors currently. I do take pride in the fact that the money that I am spending does go back to help my community, and not just a conglomerate. Most of the things that I do relating to my business, I try to make sure that they are benefiting my community. That’s why I started baking in the first place!

Contact Info:

• Website: https://instagram.com/cocosinfusionss?igshid=YmMyMTA2M2Y=
• Instagram: CocosInfusionss
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/cocosinfusionss/