We recently connected with Rebecca & Mitchell Breese Breese and have shared our conversation below.

Rebecca & Mitchell Breese, looking forward to hearing all of your stories today. Can you talk to us about a risk you’ve taken – walk us through the story?

This might be a little rambly but hopefully it provides some context

A few years ago our family moved back home after living in Colorado, filled with aspirations of establishing a farm and homestead. Despite setbacks encountered during the pandemic, our resolve grew as we continued adding more chickens to our budding farm. We were pretty pleased with ourselves on our few dozen of eggs a week. But when expecting our second daughter this past year, had us reevaluating what we wanted our future to look like. We decided to bet on ourselves and embark on what many described as a “giant mistake” Mitchell left his corporate finance job to nurture our farm and revive our vineyard on a full-time basis.

A little more backstory, I (Rebecca), am from orginally from Washington County, I grew up around 4-H, FFA, and showing sheep and being apart of the County Fair was a big part of my life, but on a hobby level. Mitchell is from Indianapolis, when we met almost 10 years ago in Denver, he had never mowed a long before, let alone taken care of chickens. But when we looked at where we wanted to go and what we wanted our future to look like Mitchell took his finance background and applied it to a business plan for our farm. Hoping for a if you build it they will come and doing everything on a shoestring, 6 months after being on the market we are feeling like we are headed in the right direction but also fully prepared to totally fall flat on our faces. We have divisrsfied our farm, and continue to offer a unique variety of products in hopes of connecting with a larger auidence. We have learned the rollercoaster ride that is ecommerce sites like esty. Every day we learn something new and work to adjust

Being farmers, you have to accept that a lot is out of your control, the weather, the economy, shipping failuers, access to resources to get your products to market, the reality is you could excute everything perfectly and still something like a a fluke rainstorm or a lack of availability at a market could totally destroy all your work. But you have to pick up and begin again.

Awesome – so before we get into the rest of our questions, can you briefly introduce yourself to our readers.

Holly & Vine Farm, is located in Washington County, our products and practices largely reflect situations we have run into as parents.

– we make gourment marshamallows – that are made with 100% maple syrup, we started making these after my daughter was asked to bring a treat to her daycare for cocoa and I started reading what was in the candy canes, marshmallows and other cocoa toppers

– we make 100% beeswax candles – I had a natural soy lavender candle that I thought was so amazing, our daughter who was born during the pandemic was about 8months old, when all of sudden she started breaking out in hives and having difficulty breathing. Turned out it was from the candle…which had a few additives to it

– We make raise sheep, duck, chicken, and turkey for meat, our poultry is raised free range and gmo free feed. our sheep are raised on a healthy diet and spend time on pasture as much as possible.

– we make organic herbal teas, cocoa, and spices – the herbal teas came from being a pot of coffee day drinker and being pregnant – and not able to keep down anything – I started creating my own tea blends free of additives and though I still drink coffee I have found that our blends have all kinds of helpful uses

– finally wool products they are just fun things to have – we specialize in gnomes but make all kinds of things for your home

We often hear about learning lessons – but just as important is unlearning lessons. Have you ever had to unlearn a lesson?

The customer is always right – the one thing I (Rebecca) was not prepared for was how stressful it would be to be at markets and have people look at what you had spent hours on it and form an opinion in 30 seconds whether is worth it. I know that sounds stupid, because of course that is how it works.But when you are in it, oof it can be hard.

Fast forward to recently, we have a storefront on etsy, which somedays I feel like we could write a whole book on what is wrong with etsy. Anyway, recently a person gave us a pretty horrible review, in the review it said we sent scented candles (we currently don’t do scented candles), her red candles appeared brown (our candles are red red). and we usually include a free gift usually a sample of our tea. She claimed that it did not have an ingrediant label… and she felt it must be drugs. A little backstory her order came in a few days before christmas she asked for rush shipping to make it time. At this point in the season we were making everything to order, staying up late trying to make sure everything gets done on time. Could the label been missed absoutely possible. In this case looking back…not so sure

Her review was a little bonkers, and did not make sense. We reached out to etsy for assistance and they encouraged us to work with the customer to improve the review. You see she left this one star review, refused to share photos of the product, nor was she willing to let us send a replacement. So the customer is always right…when nothing else works and you want to make them happy what do you do? In our tired minds we refunded her…in hindsight that was stupid.

This women did not care about the product, or the impact that her review would have on other people she just wanted her product for free. And as small business owners in the early days we gave her what she wanted and let her take advantage of us… further insult to injury her review stayed.

We’d really appreciate if you could talk to us about how you figured out the manufacturing process.

one of the biggest things that we ran into an issue was packaging. We felt that it sort of defeated the purposes if made this natural product and then wrapped it in plastic for sale – it felt like we were taking the cheap way out and not holding true to our values. Then on the flipside if we do a more expensive product that obvioulsy cuts into our margin, and if we do that will people still be willing to buy a more expensive product?

So we trial and errored A LOT and learned that packaging supplies that were enviromentally friendly, made in the USA, and met regluations was sort of like finding a unicorn.

But we remain on the hunt – our teas started in tin cans, now they are in glass ars with wax seals. Our labels used be to be mass produced we just found a local vendor 30 mins from our house.

our marshmallows started in plastic sealed bags we now have them in cute gable boxes

Always be ready to keep looking for better options – change is okay!

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.hollyandvinefarm.com
• Instagram: Holly_and_Vine
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/share/1BGpTWiVyj/?mibextid=wwXIfr

Image Credits

Holly & Vine Farm