Banking on KC - Denisha Jones of Sweet Peaches Cobblers
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Kelly Scanlon:
Welcome to Banking on KC. I'm your host, Kelly Scanlon. Thank you for joining us. With us on this episode is Denisha Jones, the founder of Sweet Peaches Cobbler LLC. Welcome, Denisha.
Denisha Jones:
Well, thank you for having me. Hello to you and everyone listening.
Kelly Scanlon:
First, I'm just going to start out with a big congratulations. Your company has expanded by leaps and bounds recently. You're what, in 21, 24 markets or something right now?
Denisha Jones:
So we are in eight different states, five different store chains, as well as we have reached to about 504 stores around the Midwest and a couple of restaurants as well.
Kelly Scanlon:
It's just incredible the growth. So tell us about Sweet Peaches Cobblers. What is the product? Why did you decide that you wanted to share this with the world?
Denisha Jones:
Well, Sweet Peaches Cobblers offers many different variations of peach cobbler. We love that we have our traditional, which is called the Nana's Kitchen Cobbler. It's a homemade Southern-style cobbler with those good old dumplings. The peaches are delicious and juicy. And then we have from scratch, pie crusts on the top. It's a ready to bake. You go to the grocery store, put it in the freezer. Whenever you have an urge for it, you pull it out, pop it in the oven and prepare your vanilla bean ice cream. No matter what time of the day, you can eat it at home.
Kelly Scanlon:
It sounds wonderful, but you have variations of that.
Denisha Jones:
Absolutely. So we have the Apple Cobbler, that's sold in stores. And then when you visit us at any event, we have a Jack Daniel's Cobbler, it's called Daniel's Cobbler. We have the Royal Cobbler, which is cooked with the peach Crown Royal rue. We have the Cinnamon Roll Cobbler, Peach Cobbler egg rolls. That's also available at the GEHA Arrowhead Stadium all year long, not just at games, but concerts and any events they have. And the Peach Cobbler Cookies that goes great for catered events. They just melt in your mouth. That's our delicate product. They was catered at the Sporting KC Gala where some of the players cheated on their diets just to take in one or two cookies.
Kelly Scanlon:
Okay. So you have some that you sell through retailers, grocery stores and such, and then you have others that you only serve at special events or at venues. Are you considering offering some of those other combinations or variations through the grocery stores as your fan base grows and more people ask for them?
Denisha Jones:
Absolutely. So I get that question a lot actually about the Daniel's Cobbler. And for one, the cobbler is named after my father, Daniel, who has passed on. But there has to be some licensing in place before I can get it in the retail space. So we're working on a couple of things behind the scenes. I just be quiet about it, but we're working on a couple of them. But I also think it creates excitement when a product isn't available.
Kelly Scanlon:
That's true. The exclusivity of it. Yeah. Oh, I'm at the Chiefs game. I've got to go buy it because I can't get it.
Denisha Jones:
Yes.
Kelly Scanlon:
Yeah, you're right about that. Do you have any plans to take online orders?
Denisha Jones:
So we do have some online orders that's already active on our website, but they are sold in jars. So we sell our filling in jars that we ship. We sell the specialty cobblers as well. That's another way that they can get them outside of going to events. They can go on the website, purchase them, and they are shipped, but they have to be locations that ship within the two day timeframe. So it's mostly the Midwest and the West that can receive the product within those two days timeframe.
Kelly Scanlon:
So tell us about your entrepreneurial journey. What launched this path for you?
Denisha Jones:
I just wanted some peach cobbler during the pandemic, but the peach cobbler that I wanted, I knew I couldn't have. It was my grandmother's. My grandmother being gone for a while now over 15 years. But for some reason I just started thinking about her and then I started tasting her product. Have you ever had that experience where you would think about someone and you start smelling their perfume?
Kelly Scanlon:
Oh yes.
Denisha Jones:
Something like that.
Kelly Scanlon:
Yeah. Smell is such a strong sense and it surprises you sometimes how quickly it will come back just because you think about something.
Denisha Jones:
Yes, and that's what happened, but mines was taste. And so I just started looking for cobbler everywhere. The only things that was open at that point was stores, and I started looking on Instacart and everything was peach pie or a peach lattice or a peach crumble, but no cobbler. And so, I said, you know what? Let me try to make one. I failed the first time. It was horrible. I mean, it was a horrible cobbler. And I love baking, but I never considered myself a baker. So I went to restaurants, but it just didn't satisfy my palate. So I went on six tries. I didn't get it right. I went to my mom. I said, "Hey mom, what do you think is missing?" She said, "Real butter." So when I used real butter, it made the world of a difference, and I had a party in my mouth and it reminded me of my grandmother's cobbler, the closest I got to it, and that's the one I rolled with. So that's how I created Nana's Kitchen Cobbler.
Yeah. So it didn't turn into a business though, until I went to a small little party and there was 12 people, and my brother-in-law had a dinner and I put some Peach Crown Royal in it. That's when the Royal Cobbler came about. And one of the people there posted on Facebook, and I remember this line like it was yesterday, "Denisha Jones has the best peach cobbler in Kansas City, hands down." Immediately I started getting friend requests from nowhere. By the next day I had 17 different inboxes. People were starting to ask, when was I making the next cobbler?
I was in school, my children were being homeschooled. I have four. And it started to take over my life. So I said, you know what? I'm doing these events when they started opening back up. I started out of my car, at Furniture Deals on 40 Highway was my meetup spot for people to pick up their orders. And I have video of reflecting back, just seeing that trunk with the food warmer with me pulling the pies out. I would put it on the table, back up, let them get it off the table because it was still the six foot rule. And then I said, you know what? I can't do this anymore. I'm about to be a behavioral analyst. That's what I went to school for. And before I knew it, I said, let me get this product in store so I'm not having to worry about this all the time.
Kelly Scanlon:
So at this point, when you're delivering them out of the back of your car, they're not frozen or they are frozen?
Denisha Jones:
No, they were cooked.
Kelly Scanlon:
They were cooked. They were ready to eat. If they brought a spoon with them, they could eat it right then?
Denisha Jones:
They could. Yes. Yes.
Kelly Scanlon:
Okay.
Denisha Jones:
And it'd become frozen until I started to do research about how to get it in the store. I knew I had a major competitor, but I did not want to one, take on that risk of competition. Second, I did not want to add preservatives to my product.
Kelly Scanlon:
So you're making these at home at this point, because that was a feed in itself, trying to get shelf space in grocery stores, much less in all the states that you've mentioned and in multiple chains, it's hard to get that shelf space. First, how did you do that? How did you convince someone that, "Oh, I liked my grandma's cobbler and I started making it, and they go, 'Mm-hmm.'" So how did you convince them to carry your product? And second, once the order started coming in, you had to have outgrown your kitchen pretty quickly?
Denisha Jones:
Well, I will say something that helped contribute to my growth was I took a risk by emailing someone who had a big event here in Kansas City that I never heard of. It was a barbecue festival. And I said, "You know what? My product will go great with barbecue. That's when I make it the most." And they responded. I was like, "What? They responded to me?" So they came to Kansas City for a meeting. It was held at the stadium, and they came and tasted my top three sellers. They absolutely loved it, and that's when we started getting exposure. But I really believe the method that I use works for me.
I make sure when you taste my product, it's nice and warm. I carry around a air fryer like a purse, because that's how I warm it up, because it will bring the crust back to its original crisp. So I try to make sure that they get it at its realest state of coming out of the oven. So I believe that that works for me. Even when I pitch, I'll plug the air fryer up somewhere in the same room, to warm it up so they can even start smelling it while they're listening to other pitches. They're like, "What is that smell?" So things like that, I want to make sure that they know that this product speaks for itself.
Kelly Scanlon:
So getting it in front of the, for lack of a better word here, purchasers, whether they're individuals or whether they're the people who purchase for these grocery chains, was the key there. And then, again, you're getting too big for your kitchen. It's still probably too early to go out and invest in a lot of commercial appliances and so forth. So how did you manage to keep up your production?
Denisha Jones:
Well, I did not manage at all. I began to get invited to different events, and that required me to have a commercial kitchen. So I reached out, sought out different spaces, and I ended up landing at the Ennovation Center in Independence, Missouri. I still use that kitchen for local events and our local stores here, and I absolutely love them. They're a great resource for entrepreneurs in the food industry.
Kelly Scanlon:
Absolutely they are. What do you do for your other markets? Do you have similar types of relationships there with commercial kitchens?
Denisha Jones:
So we have a co-packer, actually. Our co-packer and distributor is in Iowa. So we only produce for our local markets here in Kansas City. And then for our out-of-state markets, the distributor, co-packer goes there. But thankfully, we have now reached a point financially that we can bring in the new product to Kansas City, Missouri, and Kansas as well.
Kelly Scanlon:
This is all so recent. You mentioned this started during the pandemic, which is not too far in the rear view mirror at this point. So very, very new. You said you were going to be a behavioral analyst up until that point, until you started craving your grandmother's peach cobbler. Was there anything though in your background, or what were you doing? What was your life like up to this point?
Denisha Jones:
So my family had a catering business for quite some time. Wyatt's Catering, Michael Wyatt, my uncle, was the owner, and I would help him with his QuickBooks and his proposals, and I would manage his staff. So that was about it. But I didn't do any of the cooking or anything like that. I would be around it, but my background itself was all in behavioral. So my degree is in sociology, and I've worked with children and try to study the minds of people to help create different avenues to get them out of their mindset that they can't change their situation because of their environment. And that's when I started adopting children and bringing in homeless kids off the street. I fostered over 40 plus children. So the behavioral analyst side was, I really wanted to have the ability to analyze behaviors to the core point where I wanted to install some special instructions and educations to parents to help their children before they're exited from their homes for whatever behavioral reasons.
Kelly Scanlon:
Yeah. Get it at its source or at the beginning. Now you're making cobblers. What are some of the biggest lessons that you have learned as an entrepreneur, Denisha?
Denisha Jones:
Oh my God, there's so many, but I have to zone in on a couple or a few of them. One of them is definitely investing or finding a consultant or a mentor that specializes or has background in education in your field. Because when you are stepping into a new environment, for me, this is like foreign language. Every store chain has their own coding, their own verbiage. I have a dictionary for each store.
Kelly Scanlon:
You're making cobblers, you think of that as it's more about cooking, but the business side of it is a lot more technical.
Denisha Jones:
Yes, the business side will actually force you to hire someone else to cook because you're so busy looking upwards and definitions and trying to learn this retail verbiage that you have no type of familiarity with.
Kelly Scanlon:
Well, you just hit the nail on the head there, hire somebody else to cook, because that's a hard lesson for a lot of entrepreneurs to learn that you have to let go of maybe the thing that excited you in the beginning so that you can hone your business skills and take your business to whatever level of achievement it can possibly be.
Denisha Jones:
It's still hard.
Kelly Scanlon:
Yeah. Yeah. Oh, I'm sure it is. Yeah. But yeah, but you've learned that lesson in just a few years. So a business coach, that's number one. Anything else?
Denisha Jones:
Yes, learn QuickBooks for yourself and bookkeeping for yourself. I have an accountant, it came along with the grant that I won from GIFT, the Kansas City GIFT. They give us technical resources for the full year, and that's with accountant, an attorney, marketing and a business coach.
Kelly Scanlon:
Yeah. Wonderful program. We'll talk about it in a bit.
Denisha Jones:
But the accountant, she does her job great, but when there are invoices that are past due or you're having difficulty with cash flow and the nets, you got some companies that got a net 30, some companies got a net 45, some companies got a net 60, but you are about to open a new store location, so you got to invest in that product to go there. You have to know for yourself where your money is. So you learn how to work QuickBooks for yourself.
Kelly Scanlon:
Yeah, a sale is a sale, but cash is king. What you've got in the bank is what matters at any given moment. You mentioned earlier about the air fryer, so you've obviously learned some little secrets about how to refine your pitch as well.
Denisha Jones:
Absolutely. That was another one that I was going to mention was learn to pitch your product. What works for you? Everyone doesn't have a food product. You might have a software that you're pitching or a different type of dog food or something different, but learn what works for your pitch. And you have to study other people's pitches, who's won grants and funding and space on shelves because you have different types of pitches as well. And you have to learn who you're pitching in front of. That's another lesson that I've learned. There are so many other free resources here, and Kansas City GIFT is one of them, but there are also AltCap and the Generation X, the gen leaders, and you pay a membership, but they have resources that are available for you to really learn about entrepreneurship and how to become successful in everyday situations with your business. Take advantage of them. Don't be afraid to look into free resources.
Another major components that I take pride in, I have always been someone who enjoyed giving back to the community, but it's something different when you know that you have the support of your community and then you're able to give back to them. It's almost like I'm hugging you and thanking you, but in the same token, you're able to feed me, so I'm feeding you back. You wash my feet, I'll wash your feet. But even if you're not washing my feet at the moment, I still want to be able to give to you as well. So giving back to your community that supports you has been another valuable lesson for me to go outside of your comfort zone. I never thought that I would've helped harvesters raise $500,000, but it happened.
Kelly Scanlon:
So what do you do as part of your gift back besides harvesters?
Denisha Jones:
So I love working with Southland CAPS, which is an entrepreneur career center for the Raytown school district. They also have the Lee Summit School District and Grandview Hickman Mills. And they bring students that are interested in being entrepreneurs as well as getting involved in the workforce early on in their young adult lives. And so I mentor and I serve on the board for Southland CAPS. So that's another way that I give back, but it also means a lot to me because I know the demographic and a lot of the children that participate in that program are African-American and girls.
So I really feel like representation matters across the board when it comes to entrepreneurship. Not only am I a woman, that's one, and then I'm an African-American, that's two. And I feel like there is so much room for growth and diversity when it comes to being CEOs in the retail industry and entrepreneurship. I've been in several rooms where I have been one, the only woman or maybe one of three women. Because I remember specifically an event, and it was only three women and about 92 men. So that, it's huge. And then to be an African-American, I was the only one in that same situation.
Kelly Scanlon:
And if you read some of the studies, some of the barriers to entrepreneurship for the demographics you're talking about, is they just don't have the same contacts, the same networking circle and so forth. They've got great ideas. They've got the energy and so forth, but they don't have the contacts, the networking, the influencers, and so you're opening up those doors for them, in addition to imparting the business wisdom to them. So that's great. What would you consider to be your biggest win to date?
Denisha Jones:
One of the biggest wins, I would say, it's getting into the Chief stadium, that GEHA field.
Kelly Scanlon:
It's huge. Oh, so huge.
Denisha Jones:
My father probably was the biggest Chiefs fan I've ever met in my life, and he didn't have the pleasure to see them win these last two Super Bowls. But to know that he and my grandmother are smiling down and saying, "Go Denisha," cheering on the Chiefs, and knowing that my egg rolls are available for anybody that goes to a game, it just does something to me, to make me feel their spirits even more. I feel like that's the biggest win for me right now. And I love the other situations and wins, but right now, that's the biggest one for me.
Kelly Scanlon:
There's a sentimental connection to it.
Denisha Jones:
Yes.
Kelly Scanlon:
Yeah, absolutely. If you had to give a piece advice to other entrepreneurs, what would that be?
Denisha Jones:
I would say stay in your lane. And what I mean by that, sometimes as an entrepreneur, you want to do so much early on in your business, and I've had so many people, "Don't you want a brick and mortar? Don't you want a storefront? Don't you want a food truck? I just see you having so much success." And I said, "That's not what God has for me right now." I'm staying in my lane. I'm worrying about what's in front of me versus what everybody else sees outside of me.
Kelly Scanlon:
Sometimes, what are so-called opportunities turn out to be the biggest distractions, and you start going down rabbit holes. You've talked about GIFT a couple different times today, and I know that is a resource that has just been profoundly impactful for you. Tell us a little bit more about it and how you've benefited from it.
Denisha Jones:
So the Kansas City GIFT is an organization that solely runs off of donations. $10 a month can help stimulate the generational wealth in our community. And they offer grants to businesses like mine and technical skill, resources as well once you win a grant. But outside of that, even if you don't apply for a grant, they offer classes for software and bookkeeping and marketing and how to write a business plan, how to register for your UPC codes. It's all type of educational pieces that you don't have to pay for. These are free resources. So yes, the GIFT has been great for me, and I just was informed yesterday that I won another grant from them.
Kelly Scanlon:
Excellent. Congratulations.
Denisha Jones:
Thank you. Yeah. It's basically the round two for businesses that are successful that are raising money to help grow their business in certain areas. My reason for the ask was to bring the new packaging of the Peach Cobblers home to Kansas City in Kansas.
Kelly Scanlon:
Yeah. You teed me up for the next question, which is where does Sweet Peaches Cobblers go from here?
Denisha Jones:
I'm excited about bringing the new packaging here. I'm excited about the growth. We have a new flavor that we've zoned in on for 2024, which is the Blueberry Lemon Cobbler, and that's our next cobbler coming to the retail. So we're very excited. And that's whats next for us.
Kelly Scanlon:
Well, congratulations to everything that you've accomplished, and good luck with everything.
Denisha Jones:
Thank you so much. And if you all get a chance, go visit your local Hy-Vee, Price Chopper, Sun Fresh, or even if you're listening and you have a Schnucks in your hometown, go get you one of those frozen ready to bake Nana's Kitchen Cobblers. They're amazing. Thank you all for listening.
Kelly Scanlon:
Yeah. And you can also go to sweetpeachescobblers.com.
Denisha Jones:
Yes, you can. You can click on locations, pull up a map. It will tell you what store's closest to you and what they sell, and the address of the store.
Joe Close:
This is Joe Close, the president of Country Club Bank. Thank you to Denisha Jones for being our guest on this episode of Banking on KC. Some people learned a second language during the pandemic. Others took up bread making or lost themselves in a steady stream of movies. Denisha Jones craved her grandmother's peach cobbler and was determined to crack the recipe. The result of her pandemic pivot is Sweet Peaches Cobblers, a wholesale business featuring frozen cobblers and pie fillings in eight states. Driving the business's growth are two grants from GIFT, an organization that supports Black-owned startups. GIFT's goal is to convert economically disadvantaged areas into areas of economic opportunity, raising up communities, and stimulating generational wealth. Country Club Bank recognizes that entrepreneurs like Denisha are essential to the economic prosperity of our city, and we are grateful for the opportunity to work with several organizations dedicated to strengthening our local entrepreneurial ecosystem. Thanks for tuning in this week. We're banking on you Kansas City, Country Club Bank, member FDIC.