Hungry for More

SIMPLY SOUTHERN SIDES L.L.C.
Location: Northfield, Ohio

Founded: April 2007

Number of full-time employees: 3

What it does:

Revenue Model: Provides pre-cooked sides to retail stores, and on a contractual basis to the U.S. military and food service companies

2010 Revenues: $3.9 million

2011 Projections: $6 million

How they’re making it work: Products sold in 1,000 grocery stores; contracted to produce U.S. Food Service’s private label Southern side dishes;
products served on nine domestic military bases, as well as in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Kuwait.

A failed chicken wing restaurant left husband-and-wife team Claude and Crystal Booker with a heap of side dish recipes but famished for another shot at entrepreneurship. So they turned those sides into the business’ main dish.

Simply Southern Sides (www.simplysouthernsides.com; 330-908-0493) cooks and packages Southern favorites such as collard greens, macaroni and cheese, and mashed potatoes to restaurants, grocery stores, and military bases. But as tasty as the idea was, getting the business up and running wasn’t so enjoyable. The Bookers turned to personal savings and the investments of family and friends to come up with the $175,000 they needed for startup costs such as office equipment and marketing expenses. Recognizing the three-person business could cook and package only so many orders, the duo hired a co-packer–a manufacturing company that takes recipes and creates and packages them en masse.

The business looked good on paper, but they still needed to find clients to make it work. There was a limited budget for schmoozing. “We had depleted our savings because we were recovering from a failed restaurant,” Claude, 43, recalls. Rather than fly to meet potential clients, they saved money by driving 60,000 miles that first year. He insists, “If it took me two days to drive, then two tanks of gas is a lot cheaper than a plane ticket.”
After a few disappointing meetings, it became clear the Bookers had to do a better job of proving to potential clients that such a small firm could deliver products consistently.

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“Everybody was so concerned about whether we could really do this,” he says. “I’d go and visit these people and be so deflated.” To better sell his concept, Claude decided to play up his relationship with his co-packer. He started showing potential clients a reference letter from his partner, telling them, “This is the company that produces for me, under my specs and under my guidelines, and though I’m small, they’re capitalized,” he says. That began to break the ice, but product delivery posed yet another challenge.

While it was easy to move a truckload of side dishes, most of the company’s earliest clients wanted to start small. “I searched diligently for a minimum of two people who would be able to move my freight by the pallet,” Claude explains. Once he did, he could sell his product by the pallet at a cost-effective price. In time, customers would typically place larger orders.  “Once they know you can deliver, they give you more business.”

To grow even more quickly, the Bookers sought the expertise of a sales staff but didn’t have the funds to hire full-time help. So instead they turned to food brokers, contractors who receive 5% of everything that they sell. “The magic is I don’t pay them a salary,” says Claude. “That’s probably saved me about $300,000 over three years.”

Today, Simply Southern Sides products are in 1,000 grocery stores, including Kroger, SUPERVALU, Piggly Wiggly, and Super Kmart. The company is also a top 100 military supplier, with its dishes served up in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Kuwait, as well as on nine domestic military bases. Continuing its trajectory of growth, Simply Southern Sides has recently launched a program called “Got Sides to Go” which will offer churches a percentage of sales they bring in. According to the company, Rosemont, Illinois-based food distributor U.S. Foodservice has hired Simply Southern Sides to produce its private label side dishes.

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Claude and Crystal see the company’s current success as only an appetizer toward building an empire that they say may even include a distribution center.  “I see us being a change agent,” Claude adds.
–Tamara E. Holmes

3 key things the Bookers did to scale resources and build their bottom line without hiring full-time help.

1. Utilized a virtual office service, which answered phones and provided a professional office setting even when they were away from the office.

2. Enlisted the help of sales brokers, who worked on commission, rather than a full-time sales staff.

3. Employed retired back-office employees in areas such as human resources and accounting. These experienced  persons, wanting to work no more than 20 hours a week, could be paid an hourly rate instead of a salary.