#188 More Butter Flavor Than Butter - Farnosh Family, Sun Ghee

As we continue learning of the rich food industry in Colorado, our Meaningful Marketplace hosts are again joined by Mike Gabel of CSU Spur’s Food Innovation Center, https://agsci.colostate.edu/spur/food-innovation-center/. Our guest today started to change her relationship with food after her children were born. That’s when Farnosh Family, owner of Sun Ghee, decided on her health journey. Farnosh started with many diets eliminating gluten, then soy, dairy and other top allergens. Nothing seemed to help until she zeroed in on non- or minimal-processed foods and a large part of that regimen was cooking with ghee, which is the oil of butter, often referred to as clarified butter. It’s the best part of butter, can be used to cook, sauté or roast any food and is lactose free. It is the most nutrient rich part of the dairy food. Farnosh began experimenting infusing the ghee with spices and herbs and found not only a tasty new food, but a healthy new food as well. The entrepreneur in Farnosh spurred her to think about selling her ghee in boutique shops around her town but quickly found out you don’t do that with food, it is a much more regulated business. Farnosh didn’t really want to go the retail route with all its rules, so she chose to begin sales direct to consumers under the umbrella of the cottage food laws in Colorado. In a story we have told many times on this show, it was farmers markets where Farnosh enjoyed her first successes and her first consumer feedback. That easing into the business turned out to be pure gold for Farnosh, as she gained not only tremendous acceptance of her product, but found out what consumers wanted from her ghee, what questions they had and set her up to ramp up production and grow her product line. Farnosh used the feedback in her packaging design, her labeling and what she would say on the package. This early knowledge was instrumental in moving her business into the retail level, where she is now in full swing. The farmers market experience was about a year in the making when Farnosh moved into a commercial kitchen space to ramp up production and sell through retail channels. After about three years of growing, she has partnered with CSU and that relationship has been the catalyst for scaling her business in both retail and wholesale channels. That fortunate partnership happened because Farnosh attended a CSU food event. As she was starting to leave, our host Mike Gabel invited everyone for a tour of the commercial kitchen facilities. After viewing the equipment, Farnosh realized it was everything she needed and wanted for her dream and the bond was set. Farnosh has recently worked a distribution agreement for sales in Texas, so her footprint is growing rapidly. Living in Denver also makes it easy for Farnosh to pop in on the CSU campus kitchen when needed. Farnosh’s ghee highlights unique flavors such as sage and rosemary along with cardamom and ashwagandha. These flavors help enhance users’ breakfast, appetizers, entrees, and desserts. Listeners discount code: Meaningful. View products on their website at https://www.sungheekitchen.com/ Follow them on IG: @sungheekitchen Our hosts: Twitter - @sarahmasoni and @spicymarshall, Instagram - @masoniandmarshall. Mike Gabel: [email protected]