We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Michelle M. Czarka Founder of Pantry Products, a modern apothecary handcrafting all-natural wellness products a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.
Michelle, appreciate you joining us today. How did you come up with the idea for your business?
After attending my weekly Bikram yoga classes, my yoga mat was less than clean, but I couldn’t find a product in my local stores that cleaned off the grime without giving me a face full of chemicals. Coming from a long line of “crafty” women”, I was no stranger to whipping up what I couldn’t find so I took to Pinterest for inspiration to create my own natural formula.
The search for this one product opened up my eyes to a whole new world. One that was full of healthy products I could create using ingredients pulled directly from my own kitchen pantry! It also opened my eyes to the hazards that were hiding in the products I had been using for years. I learned the that the average woman puts 168 chemicals on her body each day simply through her personal care products. 168! I knew I had to do something to change this even if just for myself and my loved ones.
At the time, I had a 780-square-foot home and, in my kitchen, instead of cooking dinner, I cooked up natural products. What began with a yoga mat cleaner quickly expanded into an small assortment of handmade, chemical-free products including a hand salve, bubble bath and body wash. Soon enough, people were asking to purchase my products. I created an Etsy page then vended at a local farmers’ market and, eventually, opened my own shop inside of a local marketplace. A growth process that was both scary and thrilling.
I found that people were in desperate need of products they could trust to truly be safe for them and for their family. They wanted products made from ingredients they could pronounce. They wanted products that really helped improve their well-being and didn’t just sell them empty promises. And, unlike many in the natural products industry, we were offering our creations at prices most people could afford.
Michelle, 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?
I often refer to myself an accidental entrepreneur. I didn’t start out saying “I’m going to be a business owner!” Prior to stumbling into entrepreneurship, I worked in corporate marketing across many industries including internet marketing, automotive, travel, mortgage banking, commercial construction, and healthcare. Over the 20 years of my Marketing career, I gather skills and experiences including networking, graphic design, web design, event production, and public speaking. This combined with my lifelong love of creating helped me to start Pantry Products.
Pantry Products is in it’s 8th year of business and we have grown from that first yoga mat spray to over 100 wellness products. Products our customers reach for through every part of their day and products they can trust to be clean, effective, and ethically created. Products for every member of the family. Products for skin, hair, body, babies, pets, and home. And, even with the breadth of our products, each product is still made by hand from recipes created by me and my team.
How about pivoting – can you share the story of a time you’ve had to pivot?
There have been so many pivots in running a small business but I’d say the biggest ones have happened during the times of COVID. In the beginning, the two shops we had in Reno had to close to the public. We had to switch to online orders and curbside pickup. Due to supply chain issues, we no longer had access to our brand standard ingredients and containers. We had to compromise our brand standards for packaging to ensure our customers could still purchase the products they needed. When our stores were allowed to re-open, we had to update our layout and flow of traffic to ensure proper social distancing. At one point, we made the difficult decision to close our original shop and move all of production and sales to our Wells Ave. location. And the changes just kept coming… we had to raise prices, reduce the number of employees on-hand, eliminate SKUs so we could maintain our quality standards, and even today, we are still pivoting.
We’d love to hear a story of resilience from your journey.
I truly refuse to give up on Pantry and not because I believe in Pantry so strongly but because our customers believe in us!
As inflation continues to soar and the economy worsens, we have had to pivot our operations to run as lean as possible. Everyday we see posts of small businesses having to close because they can’t survive any longer. This is a very real possibility for the majority of small businesses today including us.
In order to stay in business, we’ve made some significant changes:
At one point, we had 12 employees. Today, we have 4.
In 2021, we opened a 3800 sq ft. production and fulfillment studio in Salt Lake City but, as wholesale and retail consumers purchase less, we have made the decision to close the warehouse. We will move production back into our retail spaces.
And, while it’s the last thing we want to do, we are having to do another price increase. And it’s not so just so we can pad our pockets. It’s so that we can afford our ingredients, containers, and shipping, so we can afford to pay our team livable wages and account for cost of living increases, so we can stay on top of rent and utility increases. Every aspect of running a business has gone up significantly. Coconut oil, for example, used to cost us $100 for a 5 gallon bucket with $25 shipping. Now, it’s $250 for the same bucket and shipping is $100! There is fear in raising prices as people will express disappointment at the increase. But, if people can pay $10 for a Starbucks that lasts 10 minutes, why not spend $10 on handmade skincare that last for months and supports a locally-owned business?
Contact Info:
- Website: www.ShopPantryProducts.com
- Instagram: @pantryproducts
- Facebook: /PantryProducts
Image Credits
Product Photography by Abbey Kay (@abbeykay.co)