We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Kayla Sonneby and Kelley Callaway a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.

Kayla and Kelley, thanks for taking the time to share your stories with us today What was it like going from idea to execution? Can you share some of the backstory and some of the major steps or milestones?

We’ve both always been interested in supporting the local makers of the community, and throughout the years of our friendship we’ve talked about partnering up together and doing something fun. We’re both very much foodies, and we were out one day and noticed the venue was offering a compound butter flight. We started talking about it and realized this product was something that wasn’t very big in the area. We started doing some research on it and coincidentally around the same time we started brainstorming, the Real Good Kitchen had an open house. We stopped in and spoke with the kitchen manager, and we never looked back. The kitchen has provided us with valuable support and resources, and we’ve met and worked alongside many vendors at the kitchen who have assisted in making our idea possible.

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

Butter from the Block is a small batch producer of compound butter. Compound butter is simply butter mixed with ingredients that add sweet or savory flavor, like honey, spices, or herbs, and it is intended to elevate your dishes whether you’re cooking at home or in a professional kitchen. Our butters make it easy to put a creative twist on your favorite recipes. We’re committed to making a high quality product and we’re most proud of our repeat customers that continue to come out and support us.

We offer a variety of sweet and savory flavored butters.

For the savory butters, we have:
Roasted Garlic & Herb which blends roasted garlic with a variety of herbs.
Black Truffle Garlic features roasted garlic paired with black truffle sea salt.
Sweet Heat is a blend of calabrian chili peppers, habanero powder, and honey to round out and balance the heat from the spicy peppers.
These butters can be used in anything from grilled meats (especially steak), steamed or roasted vegetables, and mashed or roasted potatoes.

For the sweet butters, we have:
Cinnamon Brown Sugar
Lavender Honey
Bourbon Maple
These are great for any kind of breakfast item such as pastries, pancakes, waffles, scones, or biscuits, as well as other dishes such as sweet potatoes or acorn squash. Some of our customers like to bake with our butters as well.

We also feature new seasonal flavors every 3 months with savory and sweet options.

We’d love to hear the story of how you built up your social media audience?

Our first step after coming up with our idea was to start an Instagram account and website. After getting customer feedback, we also created a Facebook that is linked to our Instagram so we could reach even more people. Our approach is to be as transparent as possible by communicating often and sharing our journey as we grow.

Our advice would be to regularly post content that will spark interest or get the customers engaged. Ask the customers questions to start that first interaction, and make sure to respond to any comments, posts, or messages in a timely manner. These are great opportunities to build rapport and let your customers know how much you value them.

We’ve noticed as our audience has expanded that once you create a relationship or find a common interest, the relationship immediately starts to grow and they will support you in unexpected and meaningful ways. We’ve learned that this support isn’t just about customers buying our product — re-posting our stories and liking our content are also valuable interactions. Our favorite type of interaction is customers tagging us in recipes they’ve come up with using our products, and we love to share these ideas and incorporate them into our own content and suggestions. All of these avenues help us to spread our message and, importantly, show us what resonates the most.

We’d love to hear about how you keep in touch with clients.

We primarily keep in touch with our clients via Instagram, email, and text messages. Instagram is a great way for us to keep the lines of communication open and for us to promote each other. We’re able to add a personal touch when someone places an order by reaching out to them via text message to confirm their order along with a pickup day and time. From that point on, the customer has a direct way to reach us if they need anything or have any questions.

As a small local business, we’re in a unique position to offer such direct communication and foster personal relationships with each of our clients. We believe this is the best way for us to build something special with them. We focus on these relationships in order to establish brand loyalty, and we aim to grow that brand loyalty by offering a high quality product that consistently exceeds their expectations. By focusing on these areas, we’re able to build trust and encourage honest feedback, both of which are extremely important to us as we continue to grow.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.butterfromtheblock.com
• Instagram: @butterfromtheblock
• Facebook: Butter from the Block

Image Credits
Kara Hudgens (feature photo only). Sloan Kidd (photo of steak and potato meal only).