Mint To Be: An Entrepreneur’s Journey
We celebrate National Black Business Month. Many of our clients are entrepreneurs, creating exciting new ventures based on a dream. When I read Feast Magazine’s summer article about Rachel Burns, a financial consultant turned artisan ice cream maker, I was inspired to share her story about how Bold Spoon Creamery came to be.
It began with a patch of mint that Rachel planted in her yard – it grew so much she wanted to find uses besides an ingredient for mojitos. Five summers ago, Rachel decided to make mint ice cream and retrieved her old ice cream maker from the basement. She researched recipes and offered batches to visitors who came over. Friends noted the mint ice cream was bursting with flavor and that she was on to something really special.
Header photos: (left) Paige McDonald / (right) Joe Martinez • Logo: Dianne Cage / Mint photo: Joe Martinez
Rachel spent her free time learning everything she could about the craft of ice cream making. She asked her brother, Brad Burns (culinary expert and executive chef of Lorenzo’s Trattoria for 21 years) for advice on taking her concept to a professional level. True to her company’s name, Burns wanted to create ice creams that went beyond typical offerings. Experimenting with unusual flavor combinations such as brie-spiced honey and goat cheese fig jam become a differentiator for Bold Spoon.
Rachel agreed to talk with us and share her perspective with fellow entrepreneurs.
Entrepreneurs are often described as passionate, resourceful, tenacious, optimistic, independent thinkers and problem solvers with vision and sharp focus. Which of these traits best represent you?
I would say a mix of all of these, but being resourceful has been really important because we started our business during the pandemic. Our first sale was May 2020 and we planned to sell wholesale only to restaurants – but our business model had to completely shift when the restaurant avenue was halted. We paused and chose a new path – which was giving our ice cream away to try and opening an online store which led to farmer’s markets and grocery stores. Each of these matters, but figuring out when you need to pivot in a new direction and doing it very quickly is key.
What drove your startup focus during the early days and how has that evolved?
For any small business starting out, you just want to get your product out, build brand awareness and keep it consistent. In May 2020, I was walking around our neighborhood with a wagon full of ice cream for people to taste. Now, I’m in Straub’s sampling the flavors they carry. Bottom line, I still need people to taste it. I still need them to tell their friends, I still need to grow my base, but now I’m just doing it differently.
I love your name, image and brand. How did you decide on it?
It's funny. A group of friends would come over for blind tastings of 6 different ice creams. The surveys asked questions like: What was a forward flavor, what was a background flavor, what do you think of the texture? Everything you can imagine. They called themselves the “spoons,” which I loved. I also liked creating different ingredient combinations, so the flavor profiles were bold. And so, it became Bold Spoon.
This is helpful to me, because now when we come up with new flavors, I keep our name in mind. And I make sure that what we’re bringing forward is aligned with our brand identity.
“The Bold Spoon name is our North Star whenever we are thinking of new products.”
Has not being able to have customers sample products been a barrier?
Yes, it has, but there are ways to work around it. When we are at farmer’s markets, I have great pictures, I talk to our customers and explain the flavor profiles in detail. For me, it makes a really big difference to connect with customers. When they see the product, they see my face and remember a conversation we had. The power of tasting is big – but connecting with your customers is just as important.
Photo: Rachel Burns
You have a career in finance consulting. How has this experience benefited you in establishing Bold Spoon Creamery?
It’s helped a lot. You wouldn’t think that investment consulting and ice cream making have any intersection at all, but actually they do. In my job as an investment consultant (which I still hold), it’s about estimating, analysis and using data to make decisions. When you’re running your business, you have to have to do that too. This is a universal truth of being an entrepreneur. It’s just applied differently depending on what your industry is.
When we produce the ice cream, I need to know precisely how much each flavor costs – ingredient costs, packaging costs, gas and wear and tear on our delivery truck. If I don’t know those things, I can’t price it appropriately or figure out which elements I can bring down in cost. Keeping track of your products and knowing which ones are profitable is also important. Then, you rely on the data to make a decision which in my case, could be discontinuing a flavor and moving on.
Money awareness is critical. As an entrepreneur, you may be borrowing funds and the loan could be based on your own credit score because your company has no history. Making good financial decisions along the way and understanding all these things in finance has helped me.
Even though I’m in investments, my customer service, responsiveness and willingness to help bring new solutions must be on point. There are many crossovers. It’s not that having a background in investments is something you have to have to be an ice cream maker. Clearly, you don’t.
“Just like everything in life, you take whatever experiences you’ve had in the past and apply them forward.”
How do you define your customers? How are you currently acquiring and onboarding new customers?
To find them, you have to know what your vision is and what you want your brand identity to be first. My individual customer enjoys dessert; wants to eat whole real food; considers themselves to be a foodie; is willing to try new things and values our local spin. Consumers appreciate that most of our products offer 10 or fewer ingredients. When you find wholesalers or retailers that align with these values, it strengthens our customer’s view of our brand. For example, Straub’s has a very good reputation in the St. Louis region for having high quality products, a focus on customer service, for going above and beyond what their customers ask for. There’s nothing they won’t do if their customers ask – I look for situations like this to align my brand with.
Was it difficult to get into some of the grocery stores?
In some ways, it was easier than I thought, but still work. Early on, we were lucky enough to be in Feast Magazine and that timing aligned perfectly with Schnucks’ renewed initiative to offer local products in their stores. They reached out and wanted to learn more about us, which was kind of crazy because we had only been in business for a few months. Ultimately, they asked if we would be interested in being in their stores. I would never have expected that part to be easy.
What wasn’t easy was executing on it. With Bold Spoon, I’ve always taken the approach that when an opportunity comes our way and it’s a really great strategic fit, we will figure out a way to rise to the occasion.
Schnucks happened at an earlier time than we were ready for, and it forced us to do things better and quicker. Since we were only in farmer’s markets, we also had to accelerate getting our packaging store ready with UPC codes, nutritional information, and tamper-proof seals. Fast forwarding this step helped us get ready for the next opportunity and made it easier to get into other stores.
Photos: (left) Paige McDonald / (right) Lance Cage
Do you have plans to expand stores, your online business and distribution?
Right now, we’re in 14 stores locally and will be adding Fresh Thyme in the St. Louis Foundry location, opening in October.
We’ve paused on growing online because we have other plans for expansion. We moved our location to a rural farm area in Park Hills, Missouri. Once Bold Spoon was available in grocery stores it became more accessible and we could focus on other things. For me, focusing on deepening the relationships we have is more important and more profitable than expanding the number of them.
What’s your vision?
What makes us different is that we focus on local and make the ice cream in our barn on the farm. We plan to make this a destination experience for our customers. We’re putting in gardens now and next year, we’ll start to plan orchards.
“Our vision is a Sunday afternoon event with a box lunch, ice cream and music in a beautiful setting with Ozark Mountains and lakes.”
Now that we’re back to where our initial business model began, we’re looking for restaurants that will shine favorably on our brand and are talking with a few about developing custom flavors. I envision our growth with events at the farm, in restaurants and maybe a couple more stores.
How do you define success for your business?
There are many ways. Clearly a business has to be financially viable or it’s going to be a growing concern. We continue to build loyal customers through really great product and customer service. I believe if you do that, everything else will fall into place. If you have a great product and you treat your customers well, and you have financial awareness and good business sense, it can all work out. One of our more recent successes is being featured as a MasterCard Priceless business.
What has surprised you the most about Bold Spoon Creamery and at the end of the day, what makes you happy?
It was a surprise that most of our flavor profiles are adult-centric, and I love that! On the surface, we know that kids love ice cream, but adults do just as much. Honestly, the most fun thing is the reaction that adults have when they learn about the flavors, they’re as excited as a kid is about ice cream. This taught me even though we’re big people and we’re doing our jobs — ice cream is the simplest thing that just makes you happy.
What advice do you have for entrepreneurs?
Pay attention to what’s evolving around you. I’ve always wanted to be an entrepreneur; I just couldn't think of what my ‘thing’ was and then this idea evolved. Keep your eyes open and be aware, because you never know what your ‘thing’ is. There might be a better way to offer something, and you could create the better way.
Don’t let fear get in your way – because it’s really easy to make excuses. You might say the state of the world is not great to start a new business, don’t waste time with that. Just do it.
Don’t let perfection stand in the way of progress. In the beginning, I was hyper-focused getting the business model just right – I didn’t want to move forward until every scenario was perfectly scripted. When the pandemic happened, my business plan ended up being completely useless. So, a note of advice – clearly you need some kind of backup plan, but you don’t have to have it perfect to move forward.
Really believe in what you’re doing and be passionate about your product. You will never work as hard as you do when it’s your own business. As an employee I’ve always worked hard and have been proud of the work I do. But, in my own business I have never worked harder.
If you’re looking for distribution channels, be mindful that they have the same vision and approach to customer service as you do. You don’t want to align yourself with a company that doesn’t have a good reputation just because they said, “yes, we’ll carry your product.”
When the opportunities come, seize them, but also be aware of your constraints. You don’t know when an opportunity is going to come around again, but also make sure you can execute – because working your way out of a disappointment with a potential customer is much harder than pausing and saying, “we’re not ready yet, let’s circle back.”
Build on your successes. Getting into your first store lends credibility, then the next location won’t feel like they’re taking a chance on an unproven company. Part of this is knowing how to talk about your product to a potential buyer – and be able to sell it in a minute, no matter what your product is.
If you’re a small business trying to get into a large store, find out if there’s a special program with a subset of questions that better fits what you’re doing. When you’re applying through a standard vendor portal, the questions may be structured for a very large producer. That’s helped us.
Know when to let go – to focus on other parts of your business. I believe each entrepreneur needs to feel challenged and able. In the beginning phase, you’re doing everything. And frankly, I still am. We’re creating flavors, meeting with potential customers, washing dishes and more. Eventually you’ll need to relinquish this and trust people to do a good job.
Choose your own lane and brand identity. With any business, you have to figure out what makes you different or if there’s really no reason to be. Determine what’s unique about your business concept and lean into it.
For more information about Bold Spoon Creamery, visit their website.
