Somethings are better when Simply Homemade
Heather Thorstensen
Date Modified: 01/07/2010 9:45 AM
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Agri News staff writer
FAIRMONT, Minn. -- Not too long ago, Sandy Kuhlers didn't know the difference between jam and jelly.
But today she sells approximately 10,000 jars of the stuff each year through her business, Simply Homemade. Her products are on the shelves of some 20 stores, she sells at craft shows and she's a fixture at the Fairmont Farmers Market.
She learned how to make jam in 1988, after she got a tip from a neighbor's husband about a U-pick strawberry patch.
Once she got those berries home, she followed a recipe to the letter.
"If you follow the recipe exactly, anybody can do it," she said.
Then in summer of 2003, Kuhlers brought some jams and other homemade items to sell at a friend's garage sale. People grabbed up her products like crazy. She made almost $100 in two days.
She became a vendor at the Fairmont Farmer's Market the very next week, bringing a couple batches to sell from a tiny table. She was unemployed and feeling the need to do more to support her family.
"I had no aspirations at the time or a goal," she said. "I just kind of let it bloom and as it did, I just sort of followed it."
Customers came back for more. Soon she was cutting deals with her grocer for bulk purchases of sugar and fruit.
"It was very fulfilling for me, personally, to have something that people wanted," she said.
She launched Simply Homemade in 2006.
She sells 17 flavors of jams and jellies, 7 low-sugar jams and five types of hot pepper jelly. Any eight-ounce jar costs $6 and a two-ounce jar costs $2.75.
Her biggest seller is the raspberry hot pepper jelly.
"I sell thousands of those," Kuhlers said.
Everything is made in a rented, commercial kitchen, where she can make batches up to ten times bigger than what she could make in her home.
All of her products are made with real sugar, which she says sets her apart.
"It's fun to hear people talk about how they want to eat healthier and they like a handmade product that doesn't have a lot of artificial sweeteners," she said.
She grows some of her own gooseberries, rhubarb and raspberries, but still has to order fruit. Some of her supply comes from local growers.
She's also brought on an assistant, Sandee Nelson.
"She's my moral support and I need to bounce my ideas off somebody," said Kuhlers.
December is a time of filling holiday orders and Kuhlers is working on expanding the number of stores that carry her products so she can become less reliant on craft shows.
"I want to do a few, but not lean so heavily on them," she said.
She also works as a substitute paraprofessional with special education students in the Southern Plains Education Co-op.
Her current goal is to pay down debt and she might answer her customers' calls for spreads with horseradish.
"I haven't found a recipe yet," she said.
She takes orders by phone, at (507) 236-1519, or e-mail.