We were lucky to catch up with Theresa Adams recently and have shared our conversation below.
Theresa, appreciate you joining us today. What’s the backstory behind how you came up with the idea for your business?
My holiday gifts of apple butter to friends and family while in college took on new meaning when, as fate would have it, I married an Adams in 1992—and my apple butter became known as ‘Adams Apple’ Butter. Thousands of homemade jars and 20 years later, I founded Adams Apple Company and began the process of bringing the original Adams Apple Butter to market.
Theresa, before we move on to more of these sorts of questions, can you take some time to bring our readers up to speed on you and what you do?
I am a southerner with midwest roots, so good food has always been a way of life. I spent much of my childhood with my grandmother, and she spent much of her time in the kitchen. Memories of buttermilk biscuits, strawberry freezer jam, yeast rolls, apple pie, roast with mashed potatoes, sausage gravy, and so much more, are forever a part of me. She may not have realized it, but those memories live on in everyone who had the good fortune to sit at her table. She quietly and humbly instilled in me the joy of serving. Especially serving good food. So much of who I am and what my business is about is founded on the tastes of those memories she created. Life brought me to the south, and I brought those memories with me. It wasn’t until college, when homemade but heartfelt Christmas gifts were in the budget, that I decided to make apple butter, something I remembered watching cook in a copper kettle on my aunt’s family farm as a child. My college craft became an annual gift-giving tradition with a handwritten label, and I had no idea what was in store for this delicious spread of mine a few years later when, as a young bride, I wed an Adams. As fate would have it, my apple butter took on a new name: Adams Apple Butter. The coveted jars were gifted to family and friends for over 20 years before Adams Apple Company was founded with one product. You guessed it, Adams Apple Butter. Eight years in business (and many more apple-embracing products in the line), and I’m proud of the compliments it receives, but the one I’m most proud of is “it tastes like memories”.
Can you talk to us about manufacturing? How’d you figure it all out? We’d love to hear the story.
For years I would make the trek to the mountains to purchase 60+ lbs of apples for the annual homemade batch. I didn’t know any different after starting the company, other than it needed to be made in a commercial kitchen. So that’s how I did it, only I dragged the apples to a rented kitchen, peeled the apples, cleaned the jars, cooked all day, canned and cleaned. Imagine my dismay when I realized that this was going to be my life: 10 hour days to produce about 80 jars of apple butter. Someone said “you’re going to find a co-packer.” I had no idea how to do that. The quest began. I joined the specialty food association and started doing research. I found a co-packer I was able to share my recipe with, and we went through several batches to ensure it was as close as possible to the original product. As I created more recipes at home for new Adams Apple products, I would go through the same process for each one. I now have 11 original products, all of which have an apple ingredient to stay true to the Adams Apple brand. Whether it’s spicy blackberry, pumpkin, strawberry, peach, or our savory marinades and relishes, each one has apples, apple juice, or apple cider vinegar.
What else should we know about how you took your side hustle and scaled it up into what it is today?
I was not in a situation of having a full-time job and doing this on the side, so I didn’t have to make a choice to quit a job to pursue this. I had worked part-time as an advertising executive ever since having children, so I was a busy stay-at-home-work-at-home mom. After finding a co-packer, I stored product in my garage. My husband built shelves and cabinets for storing product and shipping boxes, and we had a shipping peanut dispenser suspended from the ceiling for filling boxes for shipments. This worked for awhile until I started receiving pallets of product and needed a storage unit for deliveries. I would go to the storage unit, load up product in my car to bring home, unload it to the shelves, then ship orders. I looked for a warehouse for a few years until just last year I found one while out driving around. It was perfect. It was a big step and a LOT of work. We rented a big truck, bought a pallet jack, and moved everything in. It’s been great to have a loading dock and plenty of room for everything all in one place.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://adamsappleco.com
- Instagram: @adamsappleco
- Facebook: adamsapplecompany