Alright – so today we’ve got the honor of introducing you to Karen Krinsky. We think you’ll enjoy our conversation, we’ve shared it below.

Alright, Karen thanks for taking the time to share your stories and insights with us today. 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

It’s fair to say that Like No Udder is the culmination of all the jobs I had ever had prior to doing this. As a vegan of 30 years, who identifies as this in every aspect of my life, I would have landed working in the veg world in one way or another. Just happens that food memories are the greatest memories from my upbringing. I’m not surprised in the least that the food industry is where I’ve spent a majority of my adult working life.

In the early 2000s, I had a vegan baking business when there was really no one else around making stuff locally. Three years in and I was burned out. I had no training in baking or business, and I learned many lessons the hard way. Those lessons were never forgotten and after years of soul searching, my husband and I came up with a few possible business ideas. These ideas had to include the following – work hours that fit with my personality, create a work culture that honors my values, and make enough money to live (and hopefully beyond). Ultimately, a soft serve ice cream truck was the winning idea. Soft serve makes people happy and no one around was offering vegan soft serve from a truck (or offering it anywhere locally, for that matter).

I spent 3 years looking for the right truck. No question, that is a long time. However, these trucks are expensive and not so easy to find used (I knew I could not afford a new truck when I started out). Well, after talking about it for so long and dedicating myself to making it happen, some family members believed in me enough to help out. In my memory, once I determined the truck I would be purchasing, it was a whirlwind. Driving the truck up from Florida was surreal and I just remember thinking – this is really happening! As is true with many food truck operators, having a great product isn’t enough. You have to figure out how to get yourself to the public That is where most vendors fail – great idea, poor execution.

Here I am 13 years later, with a storefront going strong for 7 years. We’ve transitioned from truck life to cart life and run the shop seasonally.

Great, appreciate you sharing that with us. Before we ask you to share more of your insights, can you take a moment to introduce yourself and how you got to where you are today to our readers

My husband and I have built up Like No Udder over the last 13 years. I’m the ice cream maker, baker and face of LNU at the shop. Chris is an event planner, covers marketing and comes up with amazing ideas for special menu items. Our shop, located in Providence, RI is your typical ice cream shop – just happens to be vegan. We offer 12-16 flavors of scooped ice cream with various bases, including coconut, cashew, peanut butter (and sometimes tahini or sunflower biutter). Our soft serve is an oay/soy combination. Imagine all of your favorites – sundaes, shakes, unicorns (soft serve blended with toppings), warm brownies, floats . . . with the addition of other random items like vegan jerky, candy bars, baked goods and a couple traditional veganized Jewish foods (knishes and challah).

We started off as a truck with just soft serve, but the journey led us to the shop. It took many years for me to determine that one truck was not the end of the story. In fact, while we ran the truck and the shop at the same time for 5 years, I ultimately knew that the shop was what I came to love the most. Covid allowed us to pivot and we decided to close the truck at the end of 2021 to focus on the shop. For me, it was the best decision for my personality (and sanity).

I am incredibly proud of the products we sell. We are a happy place for customers to celebrate life’s everyday moments or milestones. Our clientele varies – some are vegan, many are allergic to dairy, plenty of folks have no idea we’re vegan and just love what we offer. The goal is to make everything delicious and hope to inspire a change towards a more compassionate lifestyle. If the food is good, it makes it easier for people to make changes towards eliminating meat, dairy or eggs from their diet. We don’t talk about veganism at the shop unless someone asks.

I’m also proud of the company culture we’ve created. I have happy workers, customers feel respected and we strive to be part of the fabric of the community. My husband connects with other vendors and organizations to join forces for both charity and helping to grow other vegan businesses.

Have you ever had to pivot?

Covid is the obvious pivot point for our business. Events dried up for our truck and our shop had to come up with ways to be safe and also stay connected to our customers. We were incredibly fortunate through the last three years. For one, food, especially treats, are products that people gravitate towards during hard times. Our customers are very loyal and wanted to make sure that we survived. There’s no one around serving the kinds of things on our menu. I have a feeling we got more support than your average business – we’re part of the community. Additionally, we had to get creative on how we could continue to serve folks without coming inside the shop. Lucky for us, we have windows situated in just the right place that could operate as serving windows. Lastly, we had never offered our products through an online venue. Covid forced us to create an online purchase presence through our point of sale. Menu items were added to make the to go experience broader. We added special items like knishes and challah (savory Jewish foods) that we likely would never have thought to offer before. We’ve certainly grown in ways we never would have with online sales.

Additionally, during Covid, I made the determination that I was ready to focus on just the shop. Deciding to retire from truck life was fraught with concern about losing customers or losing a public presence. Honestly, I have NO regrets for closing the truck. We’ve instead swapped the truck out with ice cream carts, so we can still participate in events but with a fraction of the stress. By shedding the stressful part of the business, we’ve been able to grow in some really positive ways.

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

We make our hard ice cream products from scratch at our shop, offering a variety of flavors with plant based alternatives. I did not reinvent the wheel – we did in fact have a week long training on how to make vegan ice cream. With that said, I already had plenty of experience in the kitchen ranging from years in catering, food service businesses and running my own vegan baking business in the early 2000s. I took the basic training, altered the recipes and continue to come up with my own ideas for flavors.

One of the biggest lessons I have learned about manufacturing is that it’s crucial to honor the amount of time it takes to create. My husband and I often say – the ice cream doesn’t make itself. We’re in season 8 and it wasn’t until this year that I hired someone to help me make things, including baked goods. I took a business course a few years ago that was revelational. One of the mantras centered around working on your business and not in it. I’ve come to realize (and it took a lot of time and experience to come to this conclusion) that I LOVE working in my business. If growing means sacrificing being part of the day to day operations, it’s not worth it to me. So on some levels, I guess i need to accept that staying in the roles I currently fill means I may not be able to make more or do more. Having an entrepreneurial drive is double edged – I’m always coming up with new ideas but I have to accept working within the limitations of time and capacity.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.like-no-udder.com
• Instagram: www.instagram.com/likenoudder
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/LikeNoUdderLLC/
• Twitter: https://twitter.com/LikeNoUdder

Image Credits
BJ Mansuetti But only for some photos, specifically the one of me with the crown and the first two of the other images.