We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Lena Jones. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Lena below.

Lena, appreciate you joining us today. Do you manage your own social media?

I manage all of my own social media. Some days it seems that my title should be “content creator” rather than “small business owner”. Social media can become overwhelming, but I prefer to use it as a space to show who I am as a person. In order to do that authentically, I think it’s important that I manage all of my content and posts.

As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your back background and context?

I first experienced charcuterie on a trip to Pensacola with my family. I instantly fell in love with it and thought “I think I could make some of these!” Fast forward about a year and I had started making charcuterie boards for family during the pandemic, since we couldn’t go out and celebrate special occasions. My sister is the one who finally gave the nudge, “Why aren’t you just starting your own business?” I thought it was a terrible idea. Starting a business in the middle of a pandemic? Where do you even start? I began doing some research and found a shared kitchen space not too far. I went in and toured the kitchen and created an LLC later that day. So I like to say I just gave in one day… out of desperation for a job!

Graze & Gather creates any type of charcuterie/grazing experience you can think of! We’ve used themes (Harry Potter, Mickey Mouse, Lord of the Rings, etc.) and holiday themes to create unique food for party-goers to enjoy. We’ve made brunch boards, fruit and veggie boards, candy boards, movie night boards, dessert boards, etc. We love variety and love when customers ask for something special!

Graze & Gather was the first legally operating charcuterie business in the KC area. We think that’s pretty special! Doing things the right way is very important to us, which is why we’ve been licensed, insured, and working out of a commercial kitchen since the very beginning.

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

Social media is hard, and running it for a small business is playing in a whole new ballpark! We’ve been very fortunate to grow our socials fairly organically. We offer a product that is very photograph-worthy. This has definitely helped us, as many of our customers are naturally posting photos and promoting our business. The other way we have grown is by posting in groups, especially on Facebook. Kansas City has an amazing food scene and there are many groups created for finding new restaurants! We’ve been lucky that many of these groups allow small businesses to post about their restaurant/product. Most of the groups have thousands of people in them, getting your product in front of a large amount of potential customers!

So those two things are my biggest advice to someone just starting out: create a product that people are excited to share, and use any free advertising you can!

Let’s talk about resilience next – do you have a story you can share with us?

Graze & Gather was my “Covid baby”! Unfortunately, I lost a job I loved due to the pandemic. I had no idea what I wanted to do next or where to even start on a job hunt. Thankfully my sister pushed me to take a leap of faith and start a business. You read that right… start a business… in the middle of a global pandemic… that seems like it would only thrive if people were gathering together. When you think of catering, you probably think of parties, weddings, corporate events, etc. That’s exactly what I would have thought as well! Due to everyone practicing social distancing, was there really the market to start a new catering company? Yes!! We were able to start out as a “Date Night In” type of business. We advertised as being a way to make a night-in feel like a night-out. Since restrictions have lifted, we’ve had to learn new ways of catering. I don’t have any previous catering experience, so everything has been brand new for me! We have grown to specialize in large gatherings, rather than charcuterie for 2. It has been quite the journey of growth and learning as I go!

Contact Info:

• Website: www.grazeandgatherkc.com
• Instagram: @grazegatherkc
• Facebook: www.facebook.com/grazeandgatherkc

Image Credits
Mari Charlson Photography