Helping Farmers & Reducing Waste, One Bloody Mary at a Time, with Back Pocket Provisions (Replay)

07/11/22 • 27 min

Good Food Marketing with The Virginia Foodie

Back Pocket Provisions, makers of the most delicious Bloody Mary Mixes around, are on a mission to make life more delicious, healthy, honest and fun by helping small farms succeed.

On today’s show, we talk to Founder and CEO, Will Gray about the inception of his business and the ways in which it has grown since then. He touches on the impact of the coronavirus pandemic on his business and tells us about the unique way that Back Pocket Provisions has built a market for seconds in Virginia.

Next, Will tells us why “imperfect” fruits and vegetables are the perfect ingredient for his product and runs us through the planning cycle he has developed with local farmers and grocery stores. He goes on to share his ideas around how the artisan food space can support farmers by seeing them as partners to consider rather than a cost to be minimized.

We talk about Will’s plans for the future and Back Pocket Provisions’ focus on being good listeners and good partners to small and big farmers well into the future. Tune in to hear all about Will’s vision and to get inspired by his contagious enthusiasm to build a better world.

Key Points From This Episode:

Introducing our guest, Will Gray.
The story of how Back Pocket Provisions started and how it has grown.
How the pandemic impacted business.
The way in which Will and the team at Back Pocket Provisions built a market for seconds.
Why “imperfect” fruits and vegetables are the perfect ingredient for the product.
The planning cycle with farmers and grocery stores.
How Will sets strategic goals each year and brings local farmers into his plans.
The different growing groups and how the collaboration process works.
The ways in which Back Pocket Provisions helps farmers to mitigate risk.
Why Will describes his business as being a social enterprise although it is for profit.
How the artisan food space can support farmers by seeing them as partners to be accounted for.
Which business adaptations that were sparked by the pandemic Will will continue to implement.
What is next for Back Pocket Provisions.

Connect with Will:

Follow The Virginia Foodie here:

Support the show

Back Pocket Provisions, makers of the most delicious Bloody Mary Mixes around, are on a mission to make life more delicious, healthy, honest and fun by helping small farms succeed.

Key Points From This Episode:

Introducing our guest, Will Gray.
The story of how Back Pocket Provisions started and how it has grown.
How the pandemic impacted business.
The way in which Will and the team at Back Pocket Provisions built a market for seconds.
Why “imperfect” fruits and vegetables are the perfect ingredient for the product.
The planning cycle with farmers and grocery stores.
How Will sets strategic goals each year and brings local farmers into his plans.
The different growing groups and how the collaboration process works.
The ways in which Back Pocket Provisions helps farmers to mitigate risk.
Why Will describes his business as being a social enterprise although it is for profit.
How the artisan food space can support farmers by seeing them as partners to be accounted for.
Which business adaptations that were sparked by the pandemic Will will continue to implement.
What is next for Back Pocket Provisions.

Connect with Will:

Follow The Virginia Foodie here:

Support the show

Previous Episode

Guiding Food Producers from Recipe to Retail with Virginia Food Works (Replay)

Few things are more exciting for small brands than getting their first commercially-packaged food products off the production line.
Allie Hill and Katharine Wilson, founder and director of Virginia Food Works, respectively, get to see this excitement firsthand through the work they do. This non-profit, located in the Prince Edward County Cannery & Commercial Kitchen, specializes in the creation of value-added foods from locally-grown ingredients.
In today’s episode, we hear about the founding vision of Virginia Food Works and how they have upheld it over the years. We learn how they share the space with Prince Edward County Cannery & Commercial Kitchen and how their services differ, in respect to their work with small businesses.
Allie and Katharine also offer insights into the range of clients they work with, along with the equipment and support they provide. As they can exclusively for resale, they use glass jars with metal lids and have specific systems for what can and cannot be processed. Our conversation also touches on the pandemic, community support, and fundraising.
Stay tuned right till the end, where Allie makes an interesting pitch to farmers on how to create value-add products at the facility.

Key Points From This Episode:

Get to know Allie and Katharine and what Virginia Food Works does.
The history of Prince Edward County Cannery & Commercial Kitchen.
Hear more about home canning and what it entails.
The two services at Prince Edward County Cannery & Commercial Kitchen; home canning and Virginia Food Works.
Virginia Food Works makes foods exclusively for resale.
How the pandemic affected Virginia Food Works and the adjustments they made.
The impetus for starting a non-profit inside of an existing cannery and the support from the community.
Virginia Food Works’s canning niche and why they do acidified food.
The range of clients Virginia Food Works has and how they meet clients where they are.
Some of the recipes Virginia Food Works owns that farmers can use.
How farmers get help scaling recipes they might have produced at home.
Why Virginia Food Works does not have batch minimums.
The difference between Virginia Food Works and Hatch.
Some of the equipment is available at Virginia Food Works.
How Virginia Food Works raises funds; the support they get from Prince Edward County.
What the future has in store for Virginia Food Works.
A pitch for farmers who might be listening: how you can create a value-add product.

Links Mentioned in Today’s Episode:

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Next Episode

A Sweet Start Up with Sugar Bear Cville

One of the scariest (or bravest) things a food brand could do is go straight from a recipe idea to the shelf. No market testing or selling in a specialty store. It’s every startup’s dream - or nightmare if done poorly!

Emily Harpster of SugarBear Cville has done just that, and her story is a great opportunity to learn about a startup retail brand in the very early stages of development. In this episode, we speak about some of the challenges most startup food brands face and why vision and determination play a huge role in achieving and sustaining success.

SugarBear is off to a good start, thanks to some careful plans Emily put in place for her product development. And it’s paid off so far – her ice cream quickly caught the attention of ice cream aficionados like me and other local establishments who are committed to living the good food, good people, good brand life.

Emily has graciously offered to keep us up to date with her progress as she tackles the challenge of building a strong regional brand. Listen to learn more about the behind-the-scenes and ups and downs of a locally sourced retail packaged food brand. It’s a rare opportunity to watch a new brand grow from its literal beginnings in retail, and you’ll get the inside scoop from a ringside seat.

Virginia Foodie Essentials:

Ice cream is a thing that really makes people happy. - Emily Harpster
Ice cream is a little bit disarming and really charming. A lot of times, when I share with people that I do ice cream, they want to tell me about their favorite ice cream memories or a happy story or their favorite flavor. And it's a really wonderful moment to have. - Emily Harpster
When you're running a scoop shop, you're running a restaurant. It's a location, it's the interior design, it's the staffing, and then you have to get the foot traffic. It's a whole different way to market your business. - Georgiana Dearing

Key Points From This Episode:

Charlottesville has a growing food scene that is beginning to rival nearby Richmond, Virginia.
SugarBear is carried by a fan favorite over on vafoodie.com, Maribette Cafe and Petite Maribette.
It’s essential to connect with like-minded brands to help establish your brand.
Startups with an eye at grocery retail should consider SugarBear’s approach and go straight to packaged retail products bypassing farmer’s market and pop-up shops.
Watching a new brand grow from its literal beginnings in retail is a chance to uncover answers to those burning questions:
- What makes a startup tick?
- What choices do startups face?
- What marketing challenges do they need to overcome during the first year as a startup food manufacturer?
Having a clear vision and determination can shift a dream to a goal with an actionable business plan.

More About the Guest:

Emily Harpster is the owner of SugarBear Cville, a very new, very fun and very local ice cream brand out of Charlottesville, Virginia. They make ice cream from scratch featuring central Virginia ingredients.
Connect with Emily Harpster/SugarBear

Follow The Virginia Foodie here:

Support the show