We recently connected with Natasha Gentile-Leshchiner and have shared our conversation below.

Alright, Natasha thanks for taking the time to share your stories and insights with us today. Let’s start on the operational side – do you spend more of your time/focus/energy on growing revenue or cutting costs?

I’m going to say Grow Revenue. Cutting costs is easy, but in my industry where costs are fluid and constantly changing, sometimes cutting costs can hurt your outcome. Especially, if your focus is on quality ingredients. Most of my time is spent curating products and ingredients that align with what I’m creating and the menu I want to offer. So there is plenty of research that goes into what I am willing to spend money on, what will stand out to customers, and what works best financially but also creatively.

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?

My name is Natasha Gentile-Leshchiner and I am the owner and creator of Femme Fromage & Co. I’ve been working in the food industry since I was 15 years old (so a long time!), and catering and creating has always been a focus of mine. I have extensive experience working with cheese and before we landed in North Carolina, I worked for my family’s fine foods business in New York City. Providing a full catering menu, as well as cooking for our prepared foods case, and baking.
Femme Fromage was started in 2019, where my friend and I would go all over the triangle teaching classes on how to build a charcuterie and cheese board. When Covid hit, we had to put our classes on hold, and we pivoted to providing a sense of normalcy during an uncharted time. We offered charcuterie and cheese boxes and boards for delivery or pick up throughout the triangle, and we’ve been at it ever since. I never thought we’d still be here and I am so grateful we are!
We are now back to offering our classes, which have been a hit. We offer both adult and kid classes, and a variety of classes too (Not just cheese and charcuterie).
Our goal has always been to provide a quality cheese and charcuterie experience, whether that’s through a box you order or a class you take.

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

Social media can be a double edged sword. Am I the biggest fan of it? No. But does my business rely on it? Yes. Our social media presence is not huge, we don’t have 10K followers and we are not on tik tok.
But what I focus on is my personal connection to the people I meet via social media. Making that connection is so much more important and has a much higher chance of turning into a sale (or supporter) than just focusing on your following count. Always remember your followers count does not equal your businesses success.
Our following is micro-local. And that makes the most sense for our business since we are product based and we don’t offer something that we can ship. So giving our attention to our community right here in Wake Forest, makes all the difference!

What’s worked well for you in terms of a source for new clients?

Word of mouth. It’s still the most powerful form of marketing (at least for my business). Happy customers who continue to come back and order (even if it’s only for the holidays), are sharing with their friends and families and that makes the difference. I’m much more likely to try a business out if a close friend or family member used them and recommended them.

Contact Info:

• Instagram: @femmefromagenc
• Facebook: @femmefromagenc

Image Credits
Natasha Gentile-Leshchiner