Emily Yoder, a twenty-one-year-old from Ohio, stood out as a young entrepreneur by finding a new niche within the food industry. She asked herself, “Why do freshly baked goods have all kinds of ingredients that are made with chemicals, additives, and extra processing?” Yoder did her research and found that artificial and overly processed ingredients can have a negative effect on humans. Her business, Earth Energy Sustainable Treats goes against the norm of the food production. The treats are 100% vegan, gluten free, and made without five of the eight major food allergens. They also are made with no artificial flavors, colors, preservatives and refined sugar. Yoder makes sure to use only local, organic, and non-GMO sourced ingredients. For example, the energy bites are made with natural peanuts, agave sugar, chia seeds, flaxseed, and oats. 
Yoder travels around Ohio and sells her treats at farmers markets and other small businesses. Earth Energy Sustainable Treats is concerned about being environmentally friendly and also increases the proper business practice of reducing, reusing, and recycling through their packaging. It has become more popular for Americans to be extra cautious about what ingredients are put in the food they eat. Earth Energy Sustainable Treats saw their customers’ needs and solved them by creating treat people will not feel guilty about eating.
Archive for Baking – Page 2
Elizabeth Zerby is a nineteen-year-old entrepreneur and is really only known in my hometown. I grew up with Liz and have seen first-hand how she has been able to grow her very own cupcake business. After experimenting with different recipes, Liz developed an incredible gluten free cupcake that can compete with the best gluten filled ones. She managed all this from her kitchen at home. After she developed her initial recipe, she was able to create more flavors and new ways to decorate her cupcakes. Liz uses Instagram and other social media platforms to advertise her products and communicate with customers. She serves cupcakes for birthdays, weddings, graduation parties, and many other events. Cupcakes by Liz may not be a common name for most people, but in Mansfield, Ohio it spoken of very highly. Her cupcakes are recognizable at any event for their presentation and flavor. Liz’s business has been going strong for many years now, but she has had to slow down her business as she attends college. Even so, I do not believe she will stop making cupcakes any time soon. Sometimes being an entrepreneur does not come with big name success, but with a small consistent business.
Colin Hammond grew up as the youngest child of nine kids. Throughout his childhood, he would bake with his mom and older sisters. His love for baking grew exponentially, and by age twelve he had won over thirty ribbons and trophies from baking competitions across Maryland–specifically including the county and state fair. Once he reached high school, he began taking orders and running his own baking business. He ranged from one to six big orders each week, and he specializes in cakes and cupcakes. He most frequently caters for weddings and birthdays. The farthest place he has catered to is northern Virginia, which is roughly three and a half hours from where he lives. He is currently taking business classes at a community college to help him better run and expand his business. The quality of his cakes makes his high prices worth it, as he balances the cost of materials and time with making a profit. With his constant demand of baked goods, his business is thriving… so much so, that he is currently considering hiring an assistant baker. As of now, Colin is still growing his business, but he plans on someday opening up his own bake shop, and eventually turning it into a small chain.
Vinusha MK may be only twelve, but she already owns of her own baking company– Four Seasons Pastry. Vinusha’s discovery of her love of baking began when she was only nine years old. She wanted to surprise her mother for her birthday, and with the help of a friend, managed to successfully make a cake. Vinusha realized she had a knack for baking, and with her parents help, managed to sell over six hundred cupcakes from her kitchen, starting in 2019. Each cupcake is themed to represent a season– orange for summer, green (with a fondant leaf) for spring, white (with a fondant snowflake) for winter, and pink (with scattered fondant leaves) for fall. Vinusha also has sold vanilla and black forest cakes, though the cupcakes were more successful. Before the pandemic, Vinusha launched baking kits complete with ingredients, and during the time at home, she also launched blondies, chicken and vegetarian sandwiches, and homemade chocolates.
Vinusha is coached by several seasoned pastry chefs, and dreams of going to a European culinary institute. She plans on creating healthy cupcakes and a website once the pandemic ends. Some of her inspirations for the future are to make her brand number one in desserts, to open a culinary school for those who can’t afford to study abroad.
What makes Vinusha different from the rest is her passion for baking. She has no limits to her ambition, and though she is excited about her craft, Vinusha is less childish than you might expect. She refuses to give up, even if it takes twenty attempts to get making macaroons right. When mistakes are made, Vinusha gets back up and tried again. She’s willing to try new things to get the recipe just right. Vinusha is very open to feedback, and believes that you should let your passions should choose what you do with your life, and not try to force an interest on yourself.
Curly Tail Coffee is a very cool coffee company started by a young woman named Nicole Waltenbaugh. This business started out as a coffee roasting business alone, but Nicole soon added two food trailers to the business to capitalize on the demand for coffee on the go. These little trailers sell her bags of roasted coffee, pastries and muffins, hot tea, hot chocolate, and their specially roasted hot coffee. Part of the inspiration behind starting this business was the founder’s love for animals and her passion for rescue pugs specifically. One dollar of each bag of coffee that she sells is donated to an animal rescue. Because of this, Curly Tail Coffee has been able to donate over 30,000 dollars! Nicole’s love of pugs is also where the name came from, curly tail for the curly tails of the pugs that Nicole loves so much! It also applies to the curly tails of pigs which she has two of.
Curly Tail Coffee is the perfect example of a business built out of the combination of two passions. She started with the two passions of roasting coffee and the support of rescue pugs.
This business is especially cool to me because this is in our home town of Kittanning! I love Nicole and her coffee. She often has one of her pugs or one of her pigs at the trailers when you go to visit to buy coffee.
City Bonfires was created and is still produced in Maryland. It was created by Chris McCasland and Michael Opalski when both of their jobs were impacted because of the Covid-19 pandemic. Because of this, they were both at home a lot more than they were used to and started looking for something to do with all of this time they had recently acquired. I think that it is really great that they make everything right in Maryland and with American made materials.
City Bonfires sells several different product packages on their website. They sell just the “portable firepit”, three different smore packs (which include smore ingredients since these are safe to cook over, and scented ones which interestingly you can also still cook over. I think this is a very interesting concept and something that has been missing on the market. Yes there have been other little fire makers out there, but none that are made out of food grade wax and plant based materials that makes them perfectly safe to cook things like smores over.
I really like the idea and execution of City Bonfires. I believe that with innovation cool niche products like this can really make a go of it. There is nothing quite as perfect and well thought out as this product on the market. I think it is very fun that this whole company came from the pandemic.
Lancaster Cast Iron is a Pennsylvania based company that produces skillets, cutting boards, wooden utensils, and other accessories for the pans. Everything that they sell is made in the United States and strives for quality and perfection. This company was actually started by two Grove City graduates which makes the whole company better in my opinion. Mark Longenecker and Brandon Moore started this company in 2018 and it has grown ever since. These pans are very high quality and the company clearly put a lot of time and thought into the design and production of them.
This company is especially inspirational and interesting since they are both Grove City graduates, fairly young ones at that. You would not immediately think of cast iron pans when you think of something that you could innovate. Cast iron pans have basically stayed the same forever. I think it is very interesting how Mark and Brandon saw issues with the basic cast iron pans and decided to improve them. The co-founders seem very motivated by slowing down to embrace the little parts of life and getting the little details perfect. My grandparents have some of their pans and utensils and love them. Not only did they like the first few items the purchased, but they were repeat customers with not complaints.
Thomas DeGeest was a worker for IBM for 12 years before he decided he was called to do something else. Thomas left his day job and started to pursue his dream job of owning his own business where he is now serving waffles to the streets of New York City. Originally, Thomas was from Belgium and moved to the states in 1997. Waffles and Dinges has now become such a huge hit in New York City, and Thomas has created over 100 jobs. The annual revenue for W&D is $5 million. The business is open 7 days a week and for at least 14 hours each day. Originally Thomas and his wife were thinking of moving to Brazil, where they thought they may be able to open up there business idea there. However, Thomas did not speak Portuguese and they ended up not moving to Brazil. Now the mission of the company is to not just make waffles, but to make it be the customers best part of their day. The waffle recipe is straight from Belgium and Thomas stated that he will never sell frozen waffles. 
Originally the company was ran out of a mobile truck serving waffles. This became an issue due to the cost of maintaining the truck and the traffic is hard to maneuver through in New York City. This led Thomas to pivot and tow his business behind his car, and then led to buying actual stores for a home base. Thomas stated, “If you really want to run a food-truck business, realize your most important asset is your vehicle.” He goes further to explain how the truck is running 18 hours per day on Friday, Saturday and Sunday.
Thomas has grown such a successful business, and he his interviewed on CBS Magazines where he gives his input to other immigrants on how they can grow a successful business, using themes from the country of origin. 
At just seven years of age, Morgan Hipworth from Melbourne, Australia, had developed a strong passion for cooking and baking. As a young boy, Morgan had a fascination with cooking shows and loved to bake three course meals for his family on the weekends. Morgan used his uncanny culinary talents from a young age to create a unique and successful donut and baked goods company, Bistro Morgan. Morgan’s story strongly exhibits fundamental characteristics of an entrepreneur.
Morgan’s weekend dinners for his family soon expanded into something larger. When Morgan was 13 years old, he was encouraged to bring his goods to a local café, and soon became their sole supplier of baked goods. Before long, Morgan supplied baked goods to up to 15 cafés each weekend. However, Morgan was not satisfied with staying where he was, but wanted to create a permanent business. His parents compromised with him, allowing him to create a pop-up business, which turned out to be an enormous success. In the first eight days alone, Morgan sold over 10,000 donuts. Finally, when Morgan was 15 years old, Morgan’s parents agreed to allow him to start a permanent store in Melbourne. Thus, Bistro Morgan was born.
Bistro Morgan specializes in donuts and other baked goods, but also branches out into other breakfast, brunch, and lunch foods. Known for their unique and reinvented flavors, such as Peppermint Crisp with chocolate and Coco Puffs, Bistro Morgan quickly became a bustling business. Morgan has received extensive press coverage for his business, appearing on Australian radio and TV, and competing in Shark Tank. In addition, Morgan was lauded by Instagram’s CEO as a “one-in-a-million star.” Morgan maintains a strong social media presence, having accumulated over 118 thousand Instagram followers, and many more on TikTok.
Morgan is an inspiring example of a successful young entrepreneur and his story exemplifies three key entrepreneurial qualities: he takes opportunities he is presented with and runs with them; he demonstrates a strong work ethic, devoting over 60 hours each week to his business in addition to his schooling; and he knows how to be adaptable. During Australia’s strict lockdowns, for example, he continued his business by offering lockdown deliveries. Perhaps most importantly, Morgan does what he loves and loves what he does. He is a perfect example of someone finding their “sweet spot” (pun intended) and running with it. When asked on Shark Tank when he has time for fun, Morgan responded, “This is fun! This is what I absolutely love.” Morgan Hipworth serves as a great role model to aspiring young entrepreneurs—find what you love to do and discover a way to make money doing it!
Whereas most ten-year-old’s are playing video games and hanging out with friends, Cory Nieves found himself running his own million dollar business: Mr. Cory’s Cookies. At six years old, Cory decided that he wanted to help his mom buy a new car, so he started selling hot chocolate in his hometown of Englewood, New Jersey. Cory’s mom, realizing that he had an entrepreneurial spirit and a knack for business, encouraged him to continue selling hot chocolate to save money for college. Cory not only continued selling hot chocolate, but he also began selling chocolate chip cookies too.
Although Cory started off by “googling” cookie recipes, he’s since developed his ow
n recipe that provides a sweet treat with a healthy component. Over 75% of the ingredients in Cory’s cookies are organic, and he’s even expanded his line to include more all-natural options for health-conscious customers, such as double dark chocolate and oatmeal raisin cookies.
Cory is not only a master in the kitchen but in fashion as well. A quick scroll through Cory’s Instagram reveals his collaborations with some of the nation’s leading corporations, such as J. Crew, Macy’s, Pottery Barn, TOMS, and Ralph Lauren. Cory has also been featured in articles from The Huffington Post and even made an appearance on “The Ellen Show”.
The defining quality of Mr. Cory’s Cookies, however, is their mission to give back to the community. A portion of the profits fund organizations of Cory’s choosing, such as Bergen’s Promise and Children’s Aid Society. With each cookie, Cory is changing the name of entrepreneurship— and that’s just the way the cookie crumbles.