Young Man Started His Own Applesauce Business At Age 15 - B1AG
[Music] occasionally i ask it i know it's more than struggling anticipating the casket reap what we sow i'm trying to fill up my basket life's a plantation like self-love and master over the plot i've been granted on this planet now we're slanted cause the chosen been supplanted but if you overstand it it was spoken fractured but we ain't broken even though some would rather play the regular token we growing black through the essence of a presence we carry the bloody bugs we carry the mind of peasants rich black gardens future look more like eating multiply seeds like the seed banks in sweden wrap my planters on plant according to season each one cold switching it up as trees black power family what we copyright disclaimer under section 107 of the copyright act of 1976 allowances made for fair use for purposes such as criticism comment news reporting teaching scholarship and research fair use is a permitted statute that might otherwise be infringing for educational or personal use tips to balance in favor of fair use welcome black to b1a how you doing today what's going on salutations grand rising what's up this is john henry harrison i'll say a former brand mc we're back once again with another episode of the daily bread podcast here at b1 act we focus on black agriculture as it pertains to agricultural production education marketing health food nutrition and economics for the black family and it's for as well for the black community today we have a very very very special guest today we're going to be interviewing uh ethan ethan holmes excuse me ethan holmes of shaker heights ohio and uh ethan holmes actually has his own business homes applesauce and uh can't wait to bring them on and uh we're just going to go ahead and bring them on in the great story um this is something that you can really uh bring your kids show this to your kids or your nephews or your little cousins uh and hopefully that'll be an inspiration uh for the youth as well because that our youth have more power than a lot of times we'll give them credit for and ethan holmes is definitely a an example of that hello everyone thank you for having me peace uh first man i i would just like to say this is an honor to uh have this discussion with you a lot of times when we we have these agricultural discussions especially especially in the past few months uh i i we don't like to come from negative places but we try to bring news as it's happening and so there have been you know disparaging stories as far as different legislation uh obviously covet lockdown has affected a lot of people's businesses but i think that your story is definitely a bright spot that i'm looking forward to not only hearing from myself but we're also looking forward to our viewers to really uh glean some inspiration not just inspiration but innovation from what you've put together with uh holmes applesauce and so with that said before we talk too much uh can you give us a little introduction background yep so as you guys know my name is ethan holmes i'm from shaker heights which is a suburb right outside of cleveland ohio when i was 15 years old i had this dream to start my own business and so that led me to creating an applesauce brand i went to my grandfather he showed me how to make the product and then i spent years you know innovating this product to make my own recipe i'm bringing it to market i'm exposing it to buyers consumers i'm eventually hitting supermarkets in 2015. so it's been years since that development i'm now 27 years old i live in cleveland heights still uh in cleveland um i actually have a son he's one years old and i live with my girlfriend so i'm an entrepreneur full-time and i love what i do and i love working with the youth as well so we'll be speaking a little bit about that so i have a question um now when it comes to the applesauce uh you said it came it was your grandfather's recipe exactly did someone in the family have the recipe or before him or is it something that like was it something that was passed down further than the grandfather so actually wasn't you know passed down it wasn't a special recipe it was just simply hey grandpa you know you're retired you live with us yeah i think he was like in his 70s at that time and i said hey can you show me how to make applesauce i want to make a product and bring it to market i think applesauce is a product that's random but everybody eats it whether you're you know a young child or you're elderly you know if there's a there's a wide gap there and so he just showed me how to make it well this is my recipe ethan and i was like and grandpa this is cool but you know it's a little too homemade i want to make it like you know good for everybody and so that's where i spent a year to year and a half really just innovating it making my own and i was able to come up with golden delicious apples which are really great for baking or creating sauce we use a bartlett pear which is sweet and then we cook everything and boil it in apple cider which adds a lot of that flavor so those are three ingredients all grown you know right on in the earth you know nothing's artificial so i think it is it's great you bring that up when i think uh personally about my family so we're from the deep south in louisiana my grandfather he was a chef he was a world war ii uh cook and he has his great barbecue sauce and there's only about two people in the family that know and i mean he literally made a career working for somebody else unfortunately with his barbecue sauce but for some odd reason within our family have about eight we'll have seven aunties and then an uncle we've never been able to coalesce so i'll say they i am without shade on them they've never been able to coalesce and really understand the value of taking something at what seems to be a simple recipe uh pretty much anything we see in a store a grocery store it consists of a recipe that somebody got together and said hey we're going to package this we're going to figure out a way to mass market this we're going to figure out somewhere to source this and make this available for the public i actually had your applesauce before i met you and so uh one of our uh one of our friends hashing crowley pieced to the brother uh and introduced your product he had come down to lexington kentucky to uh do some samples at the black market uh facility and at that that weekend that particular weekend i was doing a presentation at a garden and i just remember how the kids there they when you know i i just knew a little bit about your story that you were 15 when you started the business and so i was more so coming from an educational standpoint hey you know this person was 15 when they started this and it was beyond their mind and so saying that to say there is a huge age there there's there's like this age barrier within the community and then the broader uh the broader community of not being able to necessarily take these skills and experiences of the older generations and applying you know younger if you want to say the word hip innovations to creating products how are you able to navigate that really uh you know i think a lot of it was just experience um so just going through experiences as a young entrepreneur um i was able to actually get launched on the market through business competition so i was actually finally got in markets i think i was about 21 years old so from 15 years old we developed that recipe to 21 is when i actually enter markets and a lot of that again was just me hustling like i remember uh there's a damon john has been a mentor i've met years ago he spoke about how his first uh shirts for fubu he actually only had like three of them and he'd have rappers wear them and then he'd say hey great you know job on that music video wearing that shirt i need that shirt back now and so i did that a little bit with the apple sauce i only had like 20 30 jars so anybody i could get it to just so they could try it and i'd even sometimes be like let me get half that jar back you know or i let them keep it and just try to spread the word out it wasn't about making profits it was just about getting you know on the market um exposing the product to grocery store buyers and saying hey what can i tweak on this to actually get this product on your shelf and i was able to see over the years once i actually finally hit 21 and got that experience um that you know it was an easy process um that everything i learned through those years of failing and kind of being told no you know kind of got me in the game and so uh that's kind of how i was able to get through that gap and then just being in the room with a lot of adults you know people in suits learning the culture you know how to you know be able to manage yourself in a room um and be able to stand your ground and negotiate um so yeah those are just some of the things i've i think learned and experienced now when you first came to your grandfather was like you know i want to how do you make the applesauce initially come to him for that recipe specifically to go to to develop a brand to bring the market or was it just about the apple sauce it was just about the applesauce i think and i was just a young child 15 and i i actually didn't mention but before i did applesauce my first idea was a chocolate bar and i caught it nom nom bars yeah exactly kind of like cookie monster nom nom nom and i uh read a book called rillionaire and i recommend this to anybody you know any of you viewers or for your you know child i mean it's called rillionaire i'm like millionaire but still were real in the beginning and it's told by this a guy named far gray and far gray made a million dollars at the age of 14 years old he's from chicago and he's just a natural hustler created his own business sold it at 14 made millions of dollars and when i read that book i was like dang i can be a millionaire too you know i can do this and so that's where i developed this idea to you know go on this journey of making my own product and bringing it to market i just didn't realize how hard it was actually gonna be um how many steps how many regulations the cost um but again it's it's always been the same i'm 27 now that it's you know i got to get this thing out there you know i got to make this brand you know sustainable so and so the you know we're in a microwave culture uh you know a lot of times we see things on tv oh this person looks successful i want to be successful as them tomorrow you know this person just told me an idea i'm gonna be like them tomorrow right 15. what were you doing in those six years i heard you say the word you know failures like how did you you know how did you maintain your mental composure and not take your eye off of the ball like what were some of the things you practiced to really you know see this project through to where it went from being a seed to actual full functioning business that's a great question so you know i was still a normal kid let me just start off with that it's okay to have the girlfriend it's okay to go to parties and you know basement parties you know all that so i did all that as a kid but then at the same time you know i just had this goal that was consistent that i wanted to build or create an applesauce brand and i have people laugh at me i people say ethan you're a class clown you know you're you tell jokes you're not an entrepreneur you're not a business person this is stupid applesauce and but i just stay consistent with it and then what i practiced was i read um you know articles from entrepreneur magazine um i you know looked at other entrepreneurs um specifically african american entrepreneurs and i saw what they did but then most importantly is i put myself out there and i think that's the number one skill um i found places like the launch house which is a place in cleveland which is an accelerator incubator for business owners you can rent space there work on your business and they also help you i found organizations like the small business development center i'm the sba the small business administration and i just said hey my name is ethan i'm 17 years old i make applesauce here's a few jars here's a business plan that i'm working on what can you help me with and from there i found you know grants loans you know investment and again it was just putting myself out there each year trying to get further and i think that's it staying consistent you know so now as far as being a young entrepreneur uh did you have anyone in your family that you looked up to that said you know what i want my own business too or was it this is just it was just that book reading there that really just sparked your entrepreneurial spirit uh nobody in my direct family or intermediate family actually had ever started or ran a business my father works in social work my mother is in education and so i definitely had like supportive parents but even at times i'll admit my mom i remember she ripped up my business plan at one point when i was 16 because we got an argument she's like you're always doing this you're not working enough on your school and then she ripped it up and i always remember that i bring it up sometimes you know but the point is that was motivation for me and we have a great relationship to this day me and my mom just because again they didn't hold my hand they didn't say hey ethan this is how you start a business they didn't even have money to give me most the time but when they did they did you know and they drove me places so again i think that's important it's having a support system but in my case i just had i think if you have a child who wants to start a business they have to want to start a business and you have to be able to maybe show them why they you know want to have ownership why they should invest in a community so and so i have to correct myself a few podcasts back i had given a statistic uh here on b1 ag we like to be you know statistically accurate and so i said there's 125 000 black owned businesses uh in north america and technically it's 2 million it's 2 million black owned businesses out of a group of 44 million 45 million but out of that 2 million only 125 000 actually employ someone other than themselves and so i know at home's applesauce you've actually employed people and i've uh i was fortunate to see some of your operation uh when i came up to cleveland so could you tell me a little bit about that like you know we we we throw this word boss around a lot i'm a boss i'm a boss you'd be like now who now who's putting you know whose pocket are you putting some bread into exactly mine so you know tell us a little bit about that you know what goes into this boss concept or being an employer definitely and so first i'll start off there are five to eight seeds in an apple um and so if you look at an apple you can pretty much say hey you know these seeds can grow into an orchard waiting to flourish and i believe the same goes for people inside all of us are seeds that can grow into something extraordinary but really we need somebody or an organization to invest in us in many cases and so we started a program called the homes entrepreneur initiative in 2015 and it wasn't purposeful was really just started off as a group of students coming into our kitchen getting paid a stipend through a community organization to help make applesauce and they would come in for maybe like six hour shifts on a saturday and sunday and then leave and then eventually became hey i want to come back i want to work again i want to work in this culinary arts food production space agriculture and then it started off as three students that became five that became ten and over the years you know we've worked with almost a thousand plus students in our kitchen uh program as well as presenting to workshops we also place students in grocery stores where they get paid stipends monthly just to go into a store like whole foods sell the product at a table and and really practice communication and confidence building skills um so those are some of the things that we've done um and again we've been able to employ about 20 to 30 students um on our payroll just through these uh programs and we're looking to create more jobs in the future um we also have a headquarters in cleveland where we do make the applesauce i mean we have a few people on staff so so you've been able to not only develop a business become an entrepreneur but still have found a way to weave in uh community outreach and engagement into like to where it's a part of your business plan exactly and one of the things that we're most proud of was 2018 we actually hosted a graduation i'm at a place called the cleveland foundation and it was about 15 kids they had their parents um they had certificates so that was really great opportunity for those students to be able to you know feel proud and walk away with a gift basket with a gift card and that they could use towards investing in their own business ideas um so again it doesn't take much to actually give back you just have to be able to do it or want to do it um and so we've been able to carve that out in our model appreciate that you said the magic a word agriculture right exactly looking at you you don't look like the farmer out on the field with the straw hat chewing on the corn cob you know plows and cows and first i'll say do you see yourself as a part of the agricultural community absolutely you know when we first started it was actually 2015 when we entered the market but by late 2016 we actually started outsourcing our production to a group of mennonites in southern ohio and so i drove about four hours from cleveland to this group of mennonites and they're like who is this black guy i've never seen this out you know an african-american that makes applesauce and actually had to show them how to make the product um and then from there they started producing it for us and they would get the apples from southern ohio i may be a group of six of them peeling them by hand cooking them in these you know 200 gallon kettles and producing thousands of jars of applesauce for us and so over the years i've been able to work with more orchards more agricultural communities some urban gardens but then majority are just you know large family orchards and we work with orchards like barman's which is a large one here in northeast ohio i'm corey hill orchards um we also work with huffman farm and more so i'm primarily ohio but then at times we do work with upstate new york in pa so so i am curious of because you know here be one ag so there was an article came out yesterday actually that uh the livestock industry is about to take a huge hit uh right now as far as what we call african american farmers the majority that are making profit on their operations or through livestock uh we see with uh you know climate change other legislation going on there are going to be some drastic changes in overall agriculture now uh you know not to be too scientific it takes trees to create apples right right uh to grow trees you have to have land uh it is kind of labor intensive because you have to have somebody to plant the trees obviously you have to have somebody to take care of the trees make sure you don't have insects eating them up make sure they're being watered for them to grow and then harvest what you know i guess trying to keep it as simple as possible for somebody that might be sitting on about uh 50 50 acres in their family uh kind of like the dynamic i told you okay i got you know people in my family that have means but aren't able to sit down together around the solid plan but that you have land what are some of the things like say with some of the farms that you've uh worked with that somebody could implement on say 50 acres uh 25 acres that could be able to supplement a company like holmes applesauce or another young entrepreneur that that catches this ethan virus of entrepreneurship uh you know so what are the inputs that will go on a farm definitely what i would say is first you want to kind of consult with your local department of agriculture you know they really can always educate you on the steps of being able to launch any specific food product in any food industry or category um and so that would be my first step but really looking at the inputs you know the food space there's endless possibilities you know i have a friend that does oat based ice cream i've seen recently people doing a lot of things with mangoes and elderberries so i think really just looking at what key ingredients or things you can grow um you know specifically in today's climate post covet but yeah there's a lot of opportunities there so what training uh skill set you know is is is there an educational program that would teach somebody what you learned what you uh i'm not going to say what you think what you know what you've experienced all right well there any similar paths you know if i'm a parent sitting inspired by this i have a 15 year old sitting in my house that's turned up on video games or doesn't know what to do with themselves like what what what's the path that you would suggest or that you've observed kind of embodies what you've learned on your path definitely a great question um right now you know we're actually in the process of creating some materials and resources for the youth to be able to actually learn entrepreneurship through my story as well as other case studies so you know there's an interest for many parents and getting their kid involved feel free to go to our website homesapplesauce.com and
you know reach out if there's any interest in any of our materials or resources but i would say directly i'm just exposing this to the kids to really uh business owners to entrepreneurship in general letting them see other black business owners other successful people in agriculture and other industries i'm allowing them to get that exposure and then sometimes it is good to be an employee you know i worked in panera i've worked in other means i've made sandwiches in the subway you know place and from those experiences that kind of taught me a little bit about organizational structure um wanting to be the boss wanting to you know lead and make decisions so i think those are all good experiences to put your child or whoever you know you're trying to expose to entrepreneurship so you had that six years from the first inception of the idea to actually putting it out in the market uh we we would have to be under a rock not to see everything that's transpired over i would say the last what eight years 12 years politically socially economically what have been some of the hurdles that that you've experienced and then what have you and what do you do to overcome those hurdles because uh here be one ag we we don't ascribe to the victim mentality we we believe we're in our finest hour we believe in a world full of problems that means you have a world full of profitable solutions and you know brilliant minds that can contract these uh you know provide contracts to address these solutions so what have been some of your hurdles and you know have you addressed them so i'd say some of our hurdles and i'll list them as you know supply chain specifically postcovid there's been an increase in packaging um a lot of items are being sourced from asia so you know we saw a huge increase which decreased our margins as a business we've also had issues with finding and actually getting items in instead of it taking maybe two to three weeks it's been eight to twelve and we've had to manage that i mean take a little cut or loss on that um throughout the years the biggest hurdle i'd say is really lack of capital um and being able to create a solid infrastructure and that means having a team and being able to pay them wages they can live off of having enough business to keep the doors open and so you know really how i've been able to manage that over the last few years is taking a step back and not working directly you know in my business on a day-to-day operational standpoint which i still have to do and that's what i do on a full-time basis but sometimes taking a step to work on my business and say okay how can i improve on these areas marketing production sales finance you name it and so some of the things we've been doing is that we've been reaching out to accelerators so in 2020 we're actually accepted into the chobani incubator program and chobani is a billion dollar yogurt producer and so they said hey you know you're a black uh you know entrepreneur that's making applesauce in cleveland ohio we'll bring you into our program and so they gave us a grant about you know four or five figures and then from there you know they've really just exposed us to more um investors and resources grocery buyers um and so now we're going through a big pivot and so we're changing our structure and our whole company from homes applesauce to home's mouth watering and we're actually looking to expand into more categories we're looking to create a lifestyle brand that can appeal not just to children but to all ages um similar to a chobani to ben and jerry's or uh uh annie's mac and cheese so you know again that's where we're moving looking at doing fruit snacks fruit and vegetable blends um dried fruit and you name it um and then most importantly we're also stepping away from production we're looking to create more of a lean model so at the moment we're raising about 1.5 million by the end of this year that is our goal um to be able to actually start our first batch with a large contract manufacturer we'll pay them the money they'll source all the product they'll make it they'll deliver it to a distribution center and then we've already had a few interest from walmart and target when these new products are are available and the reason why i name all this mention all this is because right now it's impossible for us to be able to finance and be able to produce that amount of volume for those customers um here in cleveland at our current scale so we need to be able to you know bring in capital and be sustainable and i think that's a big issue for a lot of black businesses in america we we can always get started we can be successful we can be the hottest you know restaurant or producer in the city but how do we take it to the next level how do we become national you know how do we get that exit so now here at uh b1a we have a saying uh it's really a of a mantra many hands make light work that's powerful so how important has teamwork been for you and uh bringing your homes mouthwatering to the masses teamwork has been extremely important you know and i've had some key people that have worked with me in the beginning i've had my cousin he was my first cfo chief financial officer friends from college were actually the first people to come into the kitchen with me when i had no money to pay people and i'd even give them beer you know and gas money just to you know help me make this applesauce for five six hours and then from there it just became hey you know i'll pay you twenty thirty dollars an hour or fifteen an hour to help make it but again teamwork has been a huge part um now i work with people like hashim who's been a great person to just help with sales and organization structure so definitely so uh one of the uh you brought it up with with your business but uh within that with the agricultural production specifically getting financed has been a huge issue and actually statistically only 31 percent of black businesses get you know financed uh i know for large-scale agricultural operations to function they and i think in north america the 3.5 million farmers uh the majority gets like 40 you know 40 of their operation is subsidized through the government uh i don't know if the government or the uh i don't know if there's a similar uh agency such as the usda is to agriculture within your sphere but saying that to say one of the big pieces of legislation that was pushed this year was the black was the farmers of color and my small farms act it's recently been stalled the concept of that was there were decades of farmers farmers of color black farmers however you would classify that not getting the same loans not getting the same funding as a result a lot of them lost their land a lot of them weren't able to uh you know perform operations that they were more than capable of they had more than enough land uh more than enough of a business plan and so uh saying that to say you know when you hear stories like that you know how does that make you feel as a business knowing the odds that are affecting you know the the general black population does that motivate you like how does that make you feel inside when you realize like what you've attained at such a young age within this business world um i definitely feel inspired and motivated but it wants it help it motivates me to want to you know help you know my brothers and sisters to help the next generation out even more and so i think that you know success is great but it's it really it's nothing unless you can share with others um and i've also learned that through working with people like i'm denise woodard who is the founder ceo of a company called partake foods i mean if you guys look at partake foods um it's allergy-free cookies i mean several years ago she raised a million dollars from jay-z and then just in the last few years or last year actually she raised over five million with rihanna and several other key people and so you know she's taught me a lot i've been a mentor and the reason why i mention that is just because it's good to give back and help the next person you know get into that um get into that room get into those meetings so i want to drive back around real quick because we don't hold up too much of your time early on you brought up the importance of communicating being able to articulate exactly this is what i'm doing i have applesauce knowing exactly what you want because you know where the mind said okay you can argue like my children you say you got a one-year-old i got two two-year-olds okay so yeah and we know speak baby right and so a lot of times you know there's this passion this is a genuine heartfelt passion to get something but then when it's not articulated with a very specific ask or demand however you were worded how important you know looking back now from the age of 15 if you had to put it on a pie graph of importance how big would you say that communication skill of just being able to talk uh respectably affirmatively right consciously how big is that on your path success i would say it's it's probably about 120 percent you know on this pie chart of success i think you know a lot of that's been practiced but when i first started i had to do a lot of pitch videos and i would actually just pull up my you know laptop look into the webcam and just say hi my name is ethan holmes i'm from cleveland ohio and i'm the founder and ceo of holmes mouth water and applesauce and i look right at the camera i have the jar there and i just just do that you know maybe five six takes take me two three hours and i would do it consistently i'd send those videos to shark tank uh my the the profit on msnbc anything i could um just to get my name out and that kind of got me to where i am today just uh pitching i'm practicing looking people in the eye learning to shake people's hands with a firm handshake but again i didn't learn that when i first came out i had a father who you know taught me how to you know be a man and you know dress well but at the same time i had to learn that culture and how to communicate be confident and i'm still working on that i don't have it all figured out um you know recently i actually spoke at a scholarship lunch and that made me very nervous just because they asked me to be the speaker and so each time i get an opportunity it just gets me even more prepared for the next big one so hearing your story you know it's hard to make excuses it's hard to make excuses you know there's a lot of uh you know there's a lot of perceived you know barriers to entry in whatever field that somebody has an idea chooses to go into but i i genuinely you know personally believe your story is very inspirational very inspirational i mean you've literally created a business uh some will say this is one of the worst times in america and it's as if you was oblivious to it it's like okay as things got worse you progressed i think that's very you know looking at it from a distance i think that says a lot about the opportunities that do exist for us even uh under perceived uh scrutiny under perceived oppression and i'm uh we're just grateful that you uh spent some time talking with us today uh i'm hoping that our viewers uh it's one thing we we a lot of times we go through our phones we see the headlines oh you know black business you know turn up and hit like and then scroll on but i'm really hoping that our viewers internalize what you were saying i hope our viewers internalize the energy that that you're bringing with this company something is simple and i say simple but i don't mean simple as applesauce like you said in the beginning this is something that most people we know there's 390 million people in north america at a 390 million i would say at least 200 million eat applesauce consistently or have somebody that they're around eat applesauce and so it's really identifying niches uh people have different ideologies people like different forms of entertainment people have different political leanings uh religious leanings lifestyles but one thing that brings us all together uh is food and so being able to find niches within our food system as you were talking about your story you talked about distribution uh i know up here in kentucky so a lot of you when it comes to getting high tunnels built when it comes to uh certain vegetables whenever some of the farmers are low on theirs they go to the mennonites i've worked i've seen how the mennonites work this they embody that uh teamwork makes the dream work many hands make light work concept and so you know instead of seeing other people as okay this is what they do now i'll just sit in my corner and do what i do i think there's a lot to be learned by uh looking at other people's cultures studying what works for people and each one of the steps that you said makes holmes applesauce successful are all areas of opportunity right because we don't have enough of it and also ain't gonna talk your head off you spoke about uh because i write books and i know my books take a whole lot longer to get now because of the cover lockdowns and the shipping issues because you know some of some of the materials coming from asia and so what this is it's a problem but it's also an opportunity to really start looking local local being your state your region uh sometimes your city sometimes just north america but once again there's all of these opportunities in creating a product that people need such as food and figuring out small niches from getting it from from farm to table uh but with that said uh you got any more questions well yeah um now you're from shaker heights yeah now uh i used to live in avon ohio okay yeah i know avon yeah look but worked in warrensville heights okay yep yeah that's my grandma lives actually she was a city council so warrenville heights is definitely that's my hood one of my hoods so for sure so so uh i said i used to i used to actually uh i used to work a lot in uh shakers and uh shakers heights um how did if if at all that community like when you were they supportive at first and was was there like a did anything because i meant a lot of i'm well just let me reword this there's some great great great people right a lot of heritage a lot of pride uh of people that live right there in shakers heights and i was wondering if they if you did draw from any kind of inspiration from them oh and also when you did uh bring out homes applesauce homes mouthwatering uh were they receptive and supportive yeah that's a great question yes shaker heights specifically you know warrensville heights all the surrounding communities of cleveland they are very supportive and i think that's what led us to the success we have um i actually you know here's a small lesson for you know anybody watching is i made a list of any pr um journalists or media outlets in cleveland orangeville height shaker you name it and just kind of reached out to him my name is ethan i make applesauce let me tell you my story fox 8 news cleveland playing dealer those are some of the publications that picked it up and i remember sunday getting that newspaper and seeing local entrepreneur makes applesauce and gets his product in heinen's grocery store which had 23 locations throughout northeast ohio that you know was huge we sold out instantly and a lot of that came from shaker high tynans warrensburg heights you know and then eventually other grocery stores started to pick up the product so again community i think has been at the forefront and this year one of our largest customers has actually been the columbus ohio zoo and i'm gonna say that again the columbus ohio zoo and that's huge for me because that's a zoo that's you know known nationally but again it's ohio zoo and they're saying hey we want to buy applesauce not for motz not from the guy in wyoming but from that black producer in cleveland um just like you mentioned trevor so you know that's again very important so and that's dope man definitely appreciate it thank you john thank you guys for the opportunity all right before we get out of here i know you got some work to do uh what drop some gems what what are some words of advice you would give definitely uh my words of advice um you know just to even think real quick uh you know you never know until you try you know i think that's very important to kind of remember um and you know don't accept no um you know it's also important to you know continue striving forward and thinking of other opportunities that can take you to the next level don't be you know just happy with just being um you know where you are today i guess um and i and one thing i did want to say you know for me the reason why what keeps me going i think number one is that i know that i can go even further i know that um you know we haven't really accomplished much in my mind um you know i feel like we're still you know just at the beginning of the the long cycle um and the stages that are available for my company and i think that if you have that philosophy you always go far i don't have anything to flex essentially i'm not trying to improve a narrative you know i'm just trying to get this going and then you know see where it goes i think that's my philosophy so cool we definitely appreciate your time thank you amazing story uh we wish you the most success abundance thank you just moving forward and uh and uh i really appreciate the fact that you do have community engagement of course uh as a part of your business structure um it's a wonderful thing that you you know not only present something to the community but you're also giving them giving to them and also showing them opportunities exactly it's very important and we want to continue that and bring it on a national level as we grow our company and work with partners like walmart target and whole foods even more be able to create jobs and other opportunities with those partners tell them hey you know we're doing something will you guys help us or be leaders to create more opportunities for communities so definitely great point thank you b1ag for the opportunity appreciate it thank you thank you and i hope to see you again man you know hopefully um we'll be able to interview you again after you continue to reach more milestones first quarter thank you love to have you guys as a sponsor work with you guys or sponsor you guys so appreciate it thank you i appreciate you bro thank you guys have a good evening too now that was powerful brown i really feel like that was very powerful he started this business at the age of 15. he's been able to grow his business employ his community as well as you know like he's he looks if you heard him speak just now you can tell that he is he has his feet dug in for the long haul you know this isn't like a flash in the pan business you know he's he's gonna be here for the long you never know he's gonna be compete competing with motz applesauce that's big and who would have thought applesauce value-added products family value-added products blueberries jams jellies ice creams you know these are all food products uh mr holmes is just one example of young black entrepreneurship you know the possibilities we're in our finest hour and i hope you all can see that i mean this man came up with the applesauce his own applesauce in the middle of ohio yes and uh just before we get up out of here i do want to give a big shout out to all the people of shaker heights cleveland orangeville heights you know big salute to y'all y'all uh they really that community really embraced me at that time you know from being a a young young florida boy up there in ohio in the middle of nowhere you know that community really did touch me in a very positive way and uh they were very supportive of me just in for being out of town oh you ain't from around here are you you know and they just really took care of me and made sure that i was okay so i really do have a lot of love for those communities and um hey if you have if you would like to reach out to b1a have anything that you would like to show us uh any information that you need you can always give us uh give us uh hit us up on email at b1a hiphop gmail.com please also subscribe to be one act the other great podcast on youtube you know go ahead and type that in the search bar the b1ax daily bread podcast subscribe and so we can make sure that we can bring you these agricultural stories success stories uh current events as well as solutions uh to some of the problems that we're facing day-to-day a lot of these solutions do have our agricultural base you know the agriculture you know permeates every facet every industry of every point of our daily life at the end of the day we all have to eat we don't eat there will be defeat you know we don't want to succumb to hunger you know we when we want to have abundance there are a lot of people that are food insecure you know we want there to be food security and abundance of food you know um abundance i'm gonna say it again abundance abundance abundance um brown do you have any uh last words before we get up out of here not the family looks at everything on the grocery shelf that they eat you know value-added product and think about this discussion today is this feasible you know do i know somebody to have access to somebody that grows the agricultural product that can produce this pie that can produce this yogurt this uh this bread applesauce and also please if you would like to give black to the garden with b1a go to healthyblackfood.com and sign up uh for how to grow your own food you know it's very engaging it's uh entertaining very informative and we give you and we break it down for you how to start growing your own food in a way that you would definitely be able to uh manage and then take this uh and take the information it's you know made by us for us so uh it's a great class uh go to healthyblackfood.com and you
can sign up now brown learned a lot from ethan ethan holmes today i know i feel inspired you know uh you know food is very important in my family as well my grandfather being a farmer you know he's the one that instilled the the bossness of me on the barbecue grill that actually comes from my grandfather so you know it's like i said it just it just makes me feel good i hope that everyone who uh seen this interview they feel good and look at some of their own family traditions some of their own family recipes you know some things that you know our our ancestors passed down to us through us uh because a lot of this food really was and is an expression of love you know you know you never know that may be a source for business for you as well but if you really really really really want to know something what do people need to do from the ground if you really want to know something learn how to grow something there it is i like to thank you for sitting uh for another episode of b1 ag i hope you were entertained i hope you were informed i hope you were inspired uh go outside today it's thursday you know i hope that you uh see the abundance chasing you down you know i hope you see love raining down on your head uh i hope that you just get to see nothing but happiness and joy you know throughout your day-to-day you know let's grow some let's grow some of that in today's earth and see how better uh life can be y'all have a great day be prosperous and i'll see you once again another episode of b1ag dailybread podcast
2021-07-05 07:15
