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

Hi Kiera, thanks for joining us today. One of the things we most admire about small businesses is their ability to diverge from the corporate/industry standard. Is there something that you or your brand do that differs from the industry standard? We’d love to hear about it as well as any stories you might have that illustrate how or why this difference matters.

My goal in creating this company was to create a food product that could be shelf-stable without all the added preservatives or stabilizers commonly used in the food industry. I wanted to stay my family recipe, and when a consumer looked at the label they could find every ingredient in their kitchen.

Kiera, 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?

Growing up in Cache Valley, Utah, it was a family tradition every Sunday morning to enjoy a gourmet Hawaiian French Toast breakfast. My mom’s homemade French toast was mouth-watering, topped with fresh berries and smothered in our famous cream syrup sauce, made from scratch. I looked forward to that syrup every week as a child. We would literally lick our plates clean. It was, and still is my favorite breakfast. I think it sparked the foodie within me. My passion for good food just grew from there.

Being a food scientist, my passion has been to bring that wonderful secret sauce recipe to everyone’s breakfast table. Using simple and clean ingredients, Stuff’D premium cream syrups are perfect for French Toast, Pancakes, Fresh Fruit, Crepes, Waffles, Smoothies or Oatmeal.

Can you open up about how you funded your business?

My business actually started out as a food catering business. It was a secure way for me to earn money without any huge initial costs. I would cater food at different business events, weddings, or markets. A couple years of this gave me the capital to start bottling the cream syrups I sell today. It’s been a slow and steady growth for me. My business has been pretty self-sustaining as a result.

Any fun sales or marketing stories?

My favorite marketing story happened when I first started selling my syrups. Stuff’D was selling at an expo we like to frequent, and a person from ABC4’s Good Things Utah (GTU) stopped by the booth and invited us to showcase the syrups on the show. My philosophy is take any marketing opportunity that comes my way. So even though I don’t really like the spotlight and the idea of being on TV makes my hands sweat, I took the offer and next thing I knew I was on the set of GTU! The nice ladies who host the show were trying my syrups on live TV giving real initial reactions for everyone watching to see. It was such a vulnerable moment. Thankfully they loved the syrups and gave gracious reviews to the viewers. I remember decompressing in my car after filming and watching orders just start streaming in on my phone. That was probably the moment I thought to myself, this could actually go somewhere! It was so surreal. I immediately called my family to share the excitement.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://stuffdgourmetcreations.com/
• Instagram: https://instagram.com/stuffdgourmetcreations?igshid=MDM4ZDc5MmU=
• Facebook: https://m.facebook.com/stuffdgourmetcreations/