Fed Up Foods

Carrie Stevens - Fed Up Foods On the Knowing What it Takes to be Successful: "When you're setting up your business, you want to make it convenient for the customer, but also it needs to be convenient for us because if we can't maintain it then we're going to get burnt out and we can't sustain it." Thousands of pounds of produce goes to waste every year. This is due to many things, often having nothing to do with the actual taste or health of the produce. Sometimes it just isn't pretty enough. So what can be done with all of this good food that should be consumed? Carrie Stevens has a farm, butchers animals to sell and recently purchased the business named, Fed Up Foods. This is a business that takes less than pretty food and turns it into beautiful sauces, relishes and pickled produce. Fed Up Foods got its start in the local farmers markets, thanks to Wisconsin's pickle law. Carrie Stevens is building on that foundation to bring locally sourced, shelf-stable products—ranging from pickle relish and maple ginger beets to cranberry applesauce—to more retail shelves and customers. Discover the surprising details behind what it takes to buy and run a canned goods business, from PH testing and food safety to sourcing "imperfect" produce and managing labels and inspections. Listen as Carrie explains her journey and what she has learned from building her sustainable food businesses. Enjoy! Visit Carrie at:https://www.fedupfoodswi.com/ Podcast Overview: 00:00 Woman-Owned Artisanal Canned Goods 03:41 Pickle Business Journey and Growth 09:04 Pasture Management and Livestock Rotation 10:44 Horseback Observation Resolves Calf Issues 13:23 Wisconsin Food Finance Support 17:00 "Work to Eat Philosophy" 21:21 Pickling Process and Variations 22:58 "Imperfect Produce Solutions" 27:59 "Pickled Beets Worth the Effort" 30:04 "Lard Pigs, Not Lean" 32:04 "Food Business Quality Challenges" 35:50 "Product Testing & Process Authority" 40:27 Scaling Production with Co-Packer 43:41 Cost-Effective Labeling Challenges 46:33 Frozen Meat Storage Advice 50:26 "Balancing Business and Convenience" 53:47 Cranberries: Creative Uses and Recipes 55:03 "Podcast, Support, Share Sauce" Podcast Transcription: Carrie Stevens [00:00:00]: And I said, hey, why don't you try the cranberry sauce in there? Because, you know, muddled cherries kind of look like cranberries in the cranberry sauce. And I picked them up just that day from the Mr. Ayan Rousch from Roush Century Farms in central Wisconsin. He gave me a nice little tour of his cranberry farm. Organic cranberries. Fantastic. James Kademan [00:00:20]: Sounds like another podcast guest. Yeah. Yes. Carrie Stevens [00:00:22]: So, yeah, just a little cranberry sauce in your old fashioned. James Kademan [00:00:27]: How about that? Carrie Stevens [00:00:27]: Make it the rest of the way however you like, your favorite way. James Kademan [00:00:30]: Foreign. Authentic Business Adventures, the business program that brings you the struggle stories and triumphant successes of business owners across the land. Downloadable audio episodes can be found in the podcast link fundedrawincustomers.com we are locally underwritten by the bank of Sun Prairie and today we're welcoming slash preparing to learn from Carrie Stevens of Fed Up Foods. Carrie, I'm so freaking excited. We're talking about food, which is always good. Carrie Stevens [00:01:00]: Always good. James Kademan [00:01:01]: We're talking about pickles, which is always good. Carrie Stevens [00:01:02]: Absolutely. James Kademan [00:01:03]: And we're talking business. So I feel like we got the trifecta here. Carrie Stevens [00:01:06]: Yeah, absolutely. James Kademan [00:01:07]: How's it going today? Carrie Stevens [00:01:08]: Good, good. James Kademan [00:01:09]: All right, tell us the story. What is Fed Up Foods? Carrie Stevens [00:01:12]: So Fed Up Foods is a woman owned Wisconsin based artisanal canned goods company. So I purchased the business this past August. So I'm fairly new to it. However, it has been around for about five years. So it was started by a woman in central Wisconsin and her, her background, she was a produce buyer at the food co op and, and kind of different roles like that, very involved in the farmer's market and she saw a lot of produce going to waste and that was bothersome to her. Well, you know, and if you, we also own a farm, I'll talk about that more. But for a while I was getting produce from the grocery store, feeding it to our animals when it's, you know, there's a lot of beautiful produce, but you know, what happens to that produce after they can't sell it anymore. James Kademan [00:02:03]: So you would get the stuff that was blem essentially or just didn't look pretty. Carrie Stevens [00:02:07]: Yeah, or it was too, you know, I had been there for a couple weeks and it was okay, it was going mushy or whatever. James Kademan [00:02:14]: Pigs like it, humans don't love it. Carrie Stevens [00:02:15]: Right, ...