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

Hi Hope, thanks for joining us today. So, let’s start with trends – what are some of the largest or more impactful trends you are seeing in the industry?

With COVID and rising prices, I see more and more people trying to be creative with their entertainment and what they do in their free time. For example, we all know someone who grew a sourdough starter and became an expert on baking bread during the early covid lockdowns- in my friend group, it was me, I was the one baking bread.

But another thing I noticed people doing, myself included, was changing up the way they entertained in their home. Smaller, more intimate parties with fun cocktails and games or charcuterie. My friends and I grew our home bars and started making our own fancy cocktails. We would experiment with different mixers and flavors. We would squeeze our own fruit juice and compare it to the store bought kind. We would add fun garnishes like dried fruit or flowers.

I think a lot of people are doing this. You can make all kinds of fun things right in your home with your friends for a more intimate vibe or a more quiet evening. Because of this, the market around home entertainment is growing in new and exciting ways.

Hope, love having you share your insights with us. Before we ask you more questions, maybe you can take a moment to introduce yourself to our readers who might have missed our earlier conversations?

I own Simply Adorned Modern Garnishes in Grand Rapids, Michigan. I create dehydrated fruit garnishes, perfect for a fancy cocktail, mocktail or cup of tea. My garnishes make a fun and unique addition to a cocktail kit so you can create any fancy cocktail in your own home. Garnishes add beauty, elegance and aroma to any drink.

I am an oncology nurse by trade and a cancer survivor myself. The oncology world can be very stressful and emotional, so in my free time I love to bake and make all kinds of things at home as a way to relax. While experimenting with different recipes I started making my own cocktail garnishes in my oven and would keep garnishes in a jar on my home bar. My husband loves to use dehydrated oranges for his old fashioneds and lemons for his tea. I often use limes to garnishes a margarita. From a delightfully smelling jar of dehydrated fruit on my home bar the idea for Simply Adorned was born.

With a lot of help from a good friend of mine, I created a business plan and worked out the logistics of starting a company. My friend owns Cellar Door Preserves and she agreed to mentor me and allow me to rent space in her commercial kitchen. This has been a huge blessing as she has been able to help me navigate so many aspects of business ownership like inspections, financial software, packaging, shipping and so much more. Before starting a business I had no idea what all went into it, so if I were to give advise to any new entrepreneur, it would be to find a mentor!

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

I had the idea to make dehydrated garnishes after making them in my home kitchen. I knew the basics of making my product, but navigating the laws around making and selling food was very new to me. I partnered with Michigan State University’s Product Center which specifically counsels small businesses that work in the food and agricultural sector. Through this counseling I learned what regulations the state had regarding my product and how to comply with their requirements so I could make my product safely and pass state inspections for my processes.

A big question mark for me at the beginning was how to test my fruit for how much moisture was left in the garnishes after the dehydration process and if enough moisture had been removed that they would be shelf stable. The MSU Product Center helped me evaluate equipment that could test moisture levels verses local labs that can do testing for me. By working with them I was able to figure out if my process removed enough moisture to make a shelf stable product and they helped me do this in a cost effective way.

The biggest lesson I learned from this is that there are some great community resources out there to help small businesses and for me, it was very helpful and cost-effective to work with in starting my new business.

How’d you meet your business partner?

I don’t have a business partner, but I do have a great business mentor in Zenobia Taylor-Weiss. Zenobia and I met at Calvin College in 2007, we lived on the same floor and became fast friends. Fast forward to 2017, she started an amazing company called Cellar Door Preserves. Cellar Door makes all kinds of tasty, artisan jam (my favorite is the blueberry!) and cocktail fruit.

Zenobia has been a key mentor to me in the starting of Simply Adorned and Cellar Door Preserves has been a great partner and asset to my business. I can bounce ideas off of Zenobia and she can give me advise on almost any aspect of my business since she walked this same road 6 years ago.

I have also been able to rent kitchen space at Cellar Door which is great. As a small business I cannot yet afford my own commercial kitchen. Both of our companies use a lot of fruit, plus neither of us use allergens such as gluten, dairy or nuts in the kitchen so it is a great fit. Cellar Door makes very tasty cocktail fruit so we have been able to partner in making gift baskets that include cocktail fruit and garnishes which has helped me get the word out about Simply Adorned.

I am incredibly grateful for Cellar Door and all the ladies that work there as it has made this journey so much more fun and manageable. Starting a new business is scary and overwhelming and so even though I am the only “employee” at Simply Adorned I feel very supported in my work.

Contact Info:

• Website: simplyadornedmg.com
• Instagram: simplyadorned_moderngarnishes
• Other: [email protected]

Image Credits
Nicholas Gray