The Business End, Part 3: The SBA and Doing My Homework

Who out there knew about the Small Business Administration? The FEDERAL AGENCY DESIGNED TO SUPPORT SMALL BUSINESS IN THE UNITED STATES?

All of you suck for not telling me sooner.

I have an appointment next week to meet with one of their counselors and talk about my business idea, practical issues regarding a food based business, and the resources available from the SBA.

Holly, my friend extraordinaire, has suggested that she would like to be a part of this venture. I will definitely need another set of hands and a better brain than mine on this. And it would be fun to do something with Holly, though I don't want to risk our friendship either. It will be a test of our ability to be open and communicate clearly with each other. Joseph also said he was interested and maybe he can provide some of the data management support.

Tonight, I'm reading Sell Your Specialty Food, and it seems at first glance to be an awesome resource. I'm going to follow the steps that it suggests, the first being to develop a vision statement of what I would like to achieve.

Here goes.

"Love and Caramels (working title) will make unique and creative organic artisan caramels. We will use only organic ingredients with as little refining as possible. We will strive to be aware of the sources of all of our ingredients and to forge relationships with the farmers and craftspeople who make them, creating an unbroken source of energy and love from the earth in what we make. As a company we will be environmentally and in all other ways responsible and impeccably honest in all of our relationships. Love and Caramels will be a way for us to bring joy to our customers, to our partners, and to ourselves and our families."

I know, it's a first draft.

And for a tagline:

"sweet disorder, judiciously arranged."

The Business End, Part 1: A Journey of a Thousand Caramels Begins With a Single Feh.

Now comes the nuts and bolts, the nitty gritty. There are many tasks in this business of starting a business that are creative and discretionary (what should I call it? what should I use for packaging? should I incorporate as an LLC?) But some questions are NOT. Some questions just need answers:

1. Do I need a food handler's license?
2. Must I use a commercial kitchen?
3. How can I get my caramels certified Organic Free Range Happy Caramels?
4. What do my labels have to say and will they need a barcode, or is that optional?
5. If I must include nutritional information, how do I find that out or can I do the math myself?
6. Should I just get a job at UW and forget about this?

Feh.

I need to do my homework, but feel free to weigh in with answers if you know them.

In the meantime, however, I shall make more caramels. Feeling uninspired to experiment, I think I'll whip up a batch of classic light butter cinnamon. Perhaps I will experimentally dust some of them with strange things and force my friends to try them.

Also, SEE THIS MOVIE.

Also, I need to figure out what to get everyone for my Birthday Party. Richard and Holly and Elda I have figured out. But Paul? Jack? Chad? Beth? Jessica? Joan? Hmmmm.

Nothing is better than a juicy logistical problem. It's fun to think about each person and try to sort out what they would like, what would be good. Besides caramels, because of course everyone will be getting those.

Marketing, Step 1: Contact The New York Times

Richard apprised me of an article by Kim Severson in the New York Times: How Caramels Developed a Taste for Salt.

It's a good article about the popularity curve of salt caramels in our culture, broken into four stages, and it gives a great boost to a local Seattle caramel business, Fran's. But it doesn't talk about the healthiness of caramels, except for a nod at the end:

One thing salted caramels conspicuously lack is a health and wellness angle. That surprised Ms. Dornblaser, who said the nation’s obsession with healthier eating drives many current food trends.

I'm sure they are referring to more than just white sugar and high fructose corn syrup, because people seem to think that cream and butter are bad for you. That's just weird.

So, I sent an email to Kim Severson, made the argument for a fifth stage of caramel evolution, "organic, all-natural, unprocessed, free-range caramels", and asked if she would like to taste some of mine.

We'll see what she says.

Caramels, Part V: I Am Bewildered With Multiplicity.

O Marvelous! what new configuration will come next? I am bewildered with multiplicity.
- William Carlos Williams, At Dawn, 1914

It takes time to take things in, integrate information, let it blend together with other things, simmer slowly until it reaches the right temperature.

More research.

I went to Whole Foods and stood in the baking section for nearly an hour, reading labels and taking notes. Honey, Agave, Yacon, Fig Syrup, Apple Syrup, Rapadura, Sucanat, Cane Syrup, Barley Malt Syrup... there's a lot to experiment with.

How would these different sugars behave differently in caramels?

So I made another dark batch using Rapadura and added raw Colorado wildflower honey instead of maple syrup in a slightly larger proportion. This time I took them off the stove at 238 degrees. They came out very soft, like taffy, but I figured that was better than too hard (um, this sounds more and more like food p*rn, but how else can I say it?) I could only hope that a little time sitting on a marble slab might firm them up a bit.

So I let them sit awhile, then wrapped some up and mailed some to Richard (along with his Weeds DVD's).

Here is an excerpt from his review:

Wow.... Honestly, I wouldn't change a thing. I think the texture / firmness was perfect: firm enough to not be sticky, but not firm enough to make me fear that it might pull off fillings. The flavor was rich and complex. It almost teeters over the line of tasting too dark / burnt, but doesn't actually cross that line at all.
The salt was sublime, both in taste, texture and quantity.

This, from a man whose cooking makes me murderously jealous, whose emails about cooking make me drool, was high praise indeed.

And it made me think I might be onto something.

Caramel, Part II: If You're Going To Fail, Fail Spectacularly.

I'm cavalier with recipes. But sometimes in the kitchen, as in life, this will get you bitchslapped.

Though I managed to produce an interesting but impractical slurry, as caramel it was a complete and utter disaster. I confess I was just trying to eyeball it and guess when the mixture bubbling on the stove was hot enough to be caramel, which I can testify does not work, so don't try it.

Perhaps there are caramel masters sitting high atop mountains who can make caramel without a thermometer. I am not one of them.

I am often the object of the charity of my friends Paul and Elda, and in this case, after listening to me complain and probably to shut me up, they gave me a spare candy thermometer, and also a high quality steel loaf pan which I used to cool subsequent batches.

And then, somewhat more humble, I went back to the computer and did some research.