We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Tanya Green a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.

Hi Tanya, thanks for joining us today. Naming anything – including a business – is so hard. Right? What’s the story behind how you came up with the name of your brand?

The inspiration for Julia Belle’s Seasonings came from the recipes that I discovered after my mom Julia Belle Burton passed away in 2015. While cleaning out her house, I found an old trunk filled with cookbooks and recipes; many of them handwritten by her and my grandmother. Not knowing what to do with many of the items, I moved them into a storage unit. After about a year, I decided to clean out the unit, eventually moving the trunk and some of the items into a closet I woke up early one morning with the idea of packaging some of the recipes and selling them as a pre-packaged mix; what better way to honor my mom and her love of cooking? So, I packaged a cornbread and a coffee cake recipe, along with a chicken seasoning blend to sell at a local farmer’s market. The items sold out right away; it was then I realized that local markets could help me turn this into a business, so I became a regular fixture at weekend markets and events. This became a great way to establish a rapport and build a customer base – to get their feedback and ideas for new products.

What started with 3 items in 2016 has since grown into over 30 unique and innovative products to make cooking fun, easy, and delicious. Our signature line of seasonings and rubs can be used to create your own unique dishes. The flexibility is such that they can be used to make anything you want to cook – from simple to complex, cuisines from American to international. The smells, the tastes, the flavors of some of the world’s finest foods; the ease you want, with the flavor you desire. Our crafted recipes are hand-blend in small batches to ensure that you are getting the utmost in freshness and taste. From seasonings to mixes, you are given an authentically gratifying cooking experience, a wonderful way to create signature dishes inspired from around the world.

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?

Julia Belle’s makes small-batch, hand-blended seasonings inspired from flavors around the globe. These fresh natural seasoning blends contain no MSG, GMO or artificial colors and offer a variety of salt and sugar free options, allowing them to easily fit into any dietary regimen without adding extra calories. Julia Belle’s also makes easy side dish options that can be made by adding 2-3 simple kitchen ingredients and cook in 30 minutes or less.Our mission is to give you a cooking experience that will insipire your culinary imagination and take it to another level.

The inspiration for Julia Belle’s Seasonings came from the recipes that I discovered after my mother Julia Belle Burton passed away. While cleaning out her house, I found a small trunk filled with her recipes; many of them handwritten by her and her mother. Not knowing what to do with the trunk and many of the items, I moved them into a storage unit. After a year of paying storage fees, I decided to clean out the unit, eventually moving some of the items to the trunk of my car. One morning I woke up with the idea of selling some of the recipes as a pre-packaged mix. What better way to honor my mom and her love of cooking. I selected a cornbread and a coffee cake recipe, along with a chicken seasoning recipe from the trunk to sell at a local farmer’s market in downtown Akron, Ohio. The items sold out right away; it was then I realized that local farmer’s markets could help me turn this into a business, so I became a regular fixture at weekend markets around northeast Ohio. These markets became a great way to establish a rapport and build a base of customers – to get their feedback and ideas for new products.

What started with 3 items in 2016 has since grown into over 30 unique and innovative products to make cooking fun, easy, and delicious. Our signature line of seasonings and rubs can be used to create your own unique dishes. The flexibility is such that they can be used to make anything you want to cook – from simple to complex, cuisines from American to international. The smells, the tastes, the flavors of some of the world’s finest foods; the ease you want, with the flavor you desire. Our crafted recipes are hand-blend in small batches to ensure that you are getting the utmost in freshness and taste. From seasonings to mixes, you are given an authentically gratifying cooking experience, a wonderful way to create signature dishes inspired from around the world.

Julia Belle’s sells directly to home cooks, restaurants, caterers, food trucks, and wholesalers who need a regular supplier of international and domestic spice blends and side-dishes. People with good palates recognize the value of quality spices, and they are willing to pay for great flavor. With our hand-crafted seasoning blends anyone be a chef, plus, consumers can always feel good about using blends from a reliable source.

It is our recipes and approach to the spice blend game that sets us apart. It is not about a jar of seasoning, but instead how we build different flavors that can be used to create all types of ethnic cuisines, while adding a unique spin to your favorite foods. We have moved food into the multi-verse by creating endless possibilities.

Where do you think you get most of your clients from?

We continue to do markets and pop-ups at food events, however, not as many as we did when we first started. Pop-ups have been and continue to be an excellent way for us to gain new customers, meet up with current ones, and glean ideas for new products. Julia Belle’s currently offers close to 40 products and the ideas for most of them came from customers asking us repeatedly for them. When we first started, we were only offering 2-ounce sizes of our blends. As customers were asking for larger sizes, we now offer the majority of our blends in 4-ounce and coming soon 8-ounce option.

My biggest suggestion for small start-ups is to consistently find ways to connect to customers or potential ones and ask them for feedback and ideas of what they would like to see you offer. This is crucial for business growth, development and success. Knowing who your customers are and what they want is the difference between a having business and a hobby. You cannot be afraid to open a dialogue with customers either at events, pop-ups or through social media.

We’d love to hear about how you keep in touch with clients.

I have created a Brand Ambassador Program where we offer free recipes and product samples in exchange for writing reviews, providing feedback, or posting on social media ideas and pictures of dishes they have created. The program allows us to show our appreciation to those loyal customers that come back again and again. They are the first to sample new products, try new recipes or to hear about new events we are hosting or attending. They are a great source of “word of mouth” advertising and promotion as they interact with the product. Studies suggest that customers are more likely to identify with brands and companies if they have a face for them. Using professional models to promote a brand is expensive and doesn’t automatically make it more attractive to target customers. Ambassadors, on the other hand, manage to make brands human and tangible.

Contact Info:

• Website: juliabelles.com
• Instagram: www.instagram.com/juliabellesseasonings
• Facebook: www.facebook.com/juliabellesseasonings.com
• Linkedin: www.linkedin.com/juliabellesseasonings