The we-could-sell-this moment happened in the kitchen.
Kevan Kipp was cooking up a batch of barbecued ribs prepared with his own sauce. He dipped a spoon into the tangy stuff and popped it into his wife’s mouth.
Laura Kipp had sampled plenty of barbecue sauce – her husband was always fiddling with his recipe – and none of it had tasted special. This time she could hardly believe her mouth.
“This is it, you did it!” she told him, and devoured a plate of his ribs leaning over the kitchen sink. It was too good to sit down, she said.
The magic ingredient? Apple butter.
A year later, the Lake Stevens couple is launching a line of bottled sauces and apple butter that will retail for between $5 and $6 a bottle. Their business is called Frawg n’ Turtle, a combination of their nicknames.
The experience was no barbecue in the park. Developing a tasty product, the Kipps discovered, is one step in the expensive and time-consuming process of bringing an item to market. They’ve spent $15,000 so far and countless hours.
It takes time and money to start up a small business, and folks like the Kipps should expect to pay $10,000 to $20,000 at least, said Dale Nelson, a food consultant. Nelson owns four companies, including Woodring Northwest, which sells a line of gourmet, local items online and at Pike Place Market.
“A lot of people come to me with a couple thousand dollars thinking they could launch a venture and that’s a hard thing to do,” said Nelson, who worked as a consultant for the Kipps.
It’s important to have enough capital to expand in case there’s a sudden demand for your product, he said. Small businesses also fail when owners don’t understand the market or underestimate ingredient prices. One woman wanted to sell her pecan pies but the price of pecans doubled in a year, forcing her out of business.
Starting a business takes time, something the Kipps don’t have a lot of. Both work full time. Laura Kipp, 45, worked in banking for more than 20 years and is now an administrator for the Lake Stevens Fire Department. Kevan Kipp, 42, is a military historian for the Air Force.
Some of the obstacles they encountered:
Choosing cost-effective ingredients: One of the first obstacles the couple faced was developing their own recipe for apple butter. Kevan Kipp had prepared that first barbecue recipe with a store-bought jar of apple butter, an expensive ingredient. So Laura Kipp, who canned when her children were small, created an original apple butter recipe that now serves as the base for all of their products.
She saved further by striking a deal with relatives to pick apples from their orchard in Eastern Washington. A food consultant introduced them to spices and flavorings in concentrated form that packed the same flavor for a fraction of the cost.
Finding a place to cook: The couple assumed they’d mix up batches of the stuff in their own kitchen. They soon learned they couldn’t prepare anything in their own kitchen that would be sold to the public. They needed to use a kitchen certified by the U.S. Department of Agriculture.
At first they thought they’d rent a certified kitchen but had trouble finding any nearby. Next, they decided to build their own in a shed. That ended when they began to see how much it would cost for the equipment, electricity and plumbing. They turned to a Gold Bar cannery they had initially dismissed as too big.
“We thought it would be this big factory that would cost more,” she said.
Instead, they found the cannery was set up for small businesses like theirs. At the cannery they had access to a workspace, equipment and a locked storage space for their ingredients. The owner gave some advice and introduced them to professionals who could assist them.
Making a home recipe suitable for mass production: The barbecue sauce might have tasted perfect in the Kipps’ kitchen but the couple had to figure out how to turn a recipe for 12-ounces of sauce into 5-gallon batches and larger. It’s not as simple as double or tripling all the ingredients, Kevan Kipp said. A teaspoon of cayenne may be perfect with a cup of sauce. Double the sauce to two cups and a teaspoon and a half of spice might be what’s needed.
Another problem: The Kipps’ recipes were formulated in teaspoons and cups. The cannery measured ingredients by weight.
The couple had to teach the cannery staff how to make their recipes, too. Large batches of the apple butter and barbecue sauce were tossed at a loss of thousands of dollars. Laura Kipp remembers coming home in tears more than one night.
“You still have to pay for the process, even if the product isn’t coming out,” Kevan Kipp said.
Developing a label: First they tried to draw their own. They soon realized they were out of their territory, and hired a graphics firm. At first, Kevan Kipp had trouble communicating what he wanted. After many exchanges, the firm produced a label the couple liked, featuring bright colors, a cool frog and a sexy turtle.
At one point, the owner of the graphics business told Kevan Kipp: “You’re the sauce man, I’m the graphics guy. Let me do my job.” Kevan Kipp wasn’t offended. He said the remark is true and it represents a lesson they’ve learned: surround yourself with skilled people.
The Kipps had to buy a bar code for each of their products. Laura Kipp learned the government sells blocks of barcodes to independent distributors who resell them. The couple also had to track down a nutritionist who would create an ingredients list and nutritional information that would meet FDA regulations.
The future: The best place for their products is on the shelves of specialty food stores, Laura Kipp said. The couple will market their product by setting up booths at farmers markets and festivals and getting specialty food storeowners to taste it.
Kevan Kipp hopes to retire in the fall and devote all his time to the business. The Kipps are dreaming up new products, including a dry steak rub, and they’d like to sell barbecue merchandise with their logo, such as aprons.
“I’d like to see every guy standing in front of a barbecue with a Frawg n’ Turtle apron and a bottle of sauce in his hand,” he said.
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