Hey All SMF members...I just wanted to through a shout out to all that have posted and/replied to other's posts, I have taken something from just about everyone! In return, I hope some of most previous posts have either inspired or directly helped fellow SMF members?
Anyway, I'm an entrepreneur type guy and really love a good challenge...over the past few months I have been working on getting all my ducks in a row to smoke serrano, jalapeño and anaheim peppers and sell them as Chipotle. I took a few classes on food safety, got a Colorado Division of Agriculture Small Dealers License and found a source for for fresh peppers (even if not Colorado grown). I picked a trade name and set-up shop at few local Farmer's Markets in the hopes of selling my spices.
I named it The Smoke Station."The purveyor of fine smoked spices and nuts"
Colorado has a "Cottage Food Act" that allows for certain items to be sold directly to consumers without too much oversight.
LINK for those interested?
So, I made 3 different types of smoke pepper chipotle. Went to my first FM on Monday (6/3/2013). We didn't have the foot traffic I was hoping for, but overall not a bad turnout. I lured them in with free samples of smoked almonds, then asked to to take a smell of the smoked peppers...people were blown away by the aroma emitted by the Anaheims smoked in mesquite. I then next had them sample the hottest peppers, Serranos, same response. The Jalapeños were in powdered form and were a little strong once you got the powder up your nose...I warned people and again, other than the coughing and runny eyes/nose, thought the Jalapeños were just as aromatic!
I won't get into too much of the pricing and how many I sold, but lets say I sold enough to make it worth while and look forward to the FM this Saturday, North of Colorado Springs.
I set-up a Facebook page and I have a computer geek friend building me a web page for future mail order. I am working on a few rubs based on the peppers.
This next week I plan on smoking some garlic to add too the offerings?!
I'm starting small as I already have too many pokers in the fire (Real Estate and EMS).
Without this website and the forums, this would've been impossible for me to achieve!!!
~Brett
Anyway, I'm an entrepreneur type guy and really love a good challenge...over the past few months I have been working on getting all my ducks in a row to smoke serrano, jalapeño and anaheim peppers and sell them as Chipotle. I took a few classes on food safety, got a Colorado Division of Agriculture Small Dealers License and found a source for for fresh peppers (even if not Colorado grown). I picked a trade name and set-up shop at few local Farmer's Markets in the hopes of selling my spices.
I named it The Smoke Station."The purveyor of fine smoked spices and nuts"
Colorado has a "Cottage Food Act" that allows for certain items to be sold directly to consumers without too much oversight.
LINK for those interested?
So, I made 3 different types of smoke pepper chipotle. Went to my first FM on Monday (6/3/2013). We didn't have the foot traffic I was hoping for, but overall not a bad turnout. I lured them in with free samples of smoked almonds, then asked to to take a smell of the smoked peppers...people were blown away by the aroma emitted by the Anaheims smoked in mesquite. I then next had them sample the hottest peppers, Serranos, same response. The Jalapeños were in powdered form and were a little strong once you got the powder up your nose...I warned people and again, other than the coughing and runny eyes/nose, thought the Jalapeños were just as aromatic!
I won't get into too much of the pricing and how many I sold, but lets say I sold enough to make it worth while and look forward to the FM this Saturday, North of Colorado Springs.
I set-up a Facebook page and I have a computer geek friend building me a web page for future mail order. I am working on a few rubs based on the peppers.
This next week I plan on smoking some garlic to add too the offerings?!
I'm starting small as I already have too many pokers in the fire (Real Estate and EMS).
Without this website and the forums, this would've been impossible for me to achieve!!!
~Brett
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