We were lucky to catch up with Kimberly Behzadi recently and have shared our conversation below.
Alright, Kimberly thanks for taking the time to share your stories and insights with us today. How did you come up with the idea for your business?
People want culinary adventures! They want to try adventurous foods and reconnect with the old, and discover new cultures through cuisines worldwide. The problem is you are time-strapped, overwhelmed and unsure of how to find an authentic food experience. You know you want to be adventurous, and that food affects more than just your tastebuds, but you don’t know where to start.
We understand your pain…. The pandemic has taken a toll on our sense of adventure. Our food choices have been limited to safe, pre-packaged items offering limited opportunities to be bold and try new things. It’s like we’ve all been living in a food bubble. Do you remember during the pandemic where everyone was making sourdough bread? People were curious about food and ready to learn new things.
We specialize in curating culinary experiences from your backyard to around the world…. All while supporting smaller, artisanal businesses and nonprofits across the US. We were recognized as one of Cratejoy’s Most Unique Subscription Box selection and made Book Riot’s list of The 10 Best Book Subscriptions for the Holiday Season.
Introducing READ IT & EAT Box™️, a foodie bookish subscription box that will take you on curated culinary adventures. Here’s how we do it:
1. We curate quarterly Read It & Eat boxes that pair books with snacks from small businesses (never from Amazon).
2. You take our quiz so we can learn a little bit more about your reading habits and snack preferences.
3. We curate the perfect Read It & Eat box for you. If you’re looking for a surprise, you can try a Blind Date with Book. If you want a culinary adventure mapped out for you, you can choose from our themed boxes, like a coffee box or cheese box.
4. We give back! We only partner with small businesses in the United States, so your support supports them! Plus, we donate a portion of our proceeds to fight hunger in Buffalo, NY. No one deserves to go hungry.
Read It & Eat is a labor of love and my way to reintroduce people to the important power of food. Food can bring us together and food is also a sustaining force in our lives. In 2022 alone we’ve worked with 14 different non profit and we’ve donated about 5,000 meals! You can learn more about our food donations here: https://www.booksnbread.com/
Kimberly, 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?
My name is Kimberly, and I love everything food. I’ve spent the past six years working in consumer product goods, which means I have helped launch some of the food you eat. I’ve worked on plant-based milks, Planters snack nuts, Halo Top ice cream and some private-label brands. Within my career I balance creative marketing, trends and insights, and product development. If you’ve been to the grocery store lately, there’s a good chance I’m looking at the newest trends and flavors out there.
While advancing my career, I realized how disconnected I was to my own food. Where did my food come from? Who was making my food? What was in my food? It’s easy to get lost in the churn of a large consumer product goods (CPG) organization where we’re driven to cut costs and launch products with the largest margins. But with industrialization and capitalism, you tend to forget about the journey your food has taken, the hands that helped nurture it, and the people the food impacts.
To better reconnect with my food, I decided to expand my knowledge outside my workday. This involved a lot of reading, writing, and research. It started with visiting grocery stores and purveyors specializing in local food. I started to take culinary boot camps, butchery classes, and techniques. I’ve butchered a whole lamb! I also had an unpaid internship with Food Tank to learn and write about food sustainability and scarcity.
So what am I doing with all this new knowledge?
Back in May 2020, I launched my Youtube Channel to review and connect with other nonfiction readers. I specialize in reviewing food writing books such as chef memoirs, books on food tech, sustainability, and agriculture. I also review fiction books with food as the focus as well.
In 2020, I launched Bookmarks & Breadsticks, LLC, and launched my Read It & Eat(TM) boxes. Read It & Eat curates culinary adventures for you to enjoy in your own home. These boxes reconnect people to food in three ways: introduce people to new foods through books about food, support small food purveyors and small businesses (never from Amazon), and give back by fighting food scarcity and hunger. Read It & Eat boxes are shipped quarterly and focus around different food themes such as donuts, Korean-food, mushrooms, or food from Mexico. In 2022 we worked with fourteen different non-profits to fight hunger, many of them in my own backyard, Buffalo, NY.
Can you open up about how you funded your business?
My business is entirely bootstrapped, which means I’m self-funded. During the last three years I’ve learned a lot about the risks and hardships of funding your own business. I’ve made mistakes (too much business credit card debt) and had great victories, such as successfully crowdfunding nearly $13,000 in 2022 through the IFundWomen platform.
I’ve continued to pitch and apply to every small business grant I could find and so far have received one. I just found out my application was accepted for a New York Seed Grant, which means I’ll be able to hire my first part-time associate next year! I’ve also taken a few small business finance classes and now have enough proof of concept to take on a small business loan (a small one) to push into the black for profitability in 2023
Are there any books, videos or other content that you feel have meaningfully impacted your thinking?
If you are a female small-business owner, these two resources were big game changers for me! IFundWomen: “For women who have big ideas, we’re here to help make them happen” https://ifundwomen.
I love the IFundWomen platform, which brought me a community of other female founders and helped me learn how to pitch my business and crowdfund my business!
For your small business PR needs, I really recommend Gloria Chou PR! Her mission is to make PR accessible for early-stage entrepreneurs without breaking the bank. In less than a year my business was featured in Book Riot, The New York Post, Woman’s Day, and the Associated Press! I was featured in 12 articles and 2 podcasts for no additional cost. These PR hits brought new traffic and sales to my website.
This is my affiliate code for the program: https://booksnbread.krtra.com/
Contact Info:
- Website: www.readitandeatbox.
com - Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/readitandeatbox/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/ReadItandEatBox
- Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/company/bookmarks-breadsticks-llc/
- Twitter: https://twitter.com/ReadItandEatBox
- Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@BookmarksBreadsticks
- Other: TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@readitandeat
Image Credits
ArtisWhy https://www.artiswhy.com/