Today we’d like to introduce you to John Hopkins.
John, please share your story with us. How did you get to where you are today?
As a home chef, I made healthy all-natural bone broths for years. In 2015, I decided to follow my food passion and change careers. Taking my home cooking skills and knowledge, I sensed a market opportunity for clean label broth made from locally sourced ingredients. A broth that tastes great and used for cooking and drinking as a beverage.
In the fall of 2015, I took to a commercial kitchen and made batches of chicken and vegetable bone broths. I finalized recipes that are used bones, vegetable and herbs. We simmered the ingredients for hours to extract maximum flavor and health benefits. My mission has always been to crafts broths that are great tasting low in sodium with no chemicals, soy, gluten, dairy, sugar or preservatives.
Once I had perfected my recipes and finalized the packaging, in the winter of 2017 I took the Five Way Foods Chicken and Veggie broths to farmers markets. My expectation was to sell a few bottles and to my great surprise I sold everything. Over the next six months, I continued to sell chicken & veggie bone broths at farmers market. During that time, I received a lot of customer feedback on how they use their broths, which got me to my company name – Five Way Foods!
And, we’ve continued the growth since then! In the summer of 2016, we released Fish Bone Broth made from fish racks sourced from Red Best. And then in the winter of 2017, we released Beef Bone Broth using bones 100% grass fed cows.
Great, so let’s dig a little deeper into the story – has it been an easy path overall and if not, what were the challenges you’ve had to overcome?
There are always challenges with growing a small business from scratch. One struggle along the way was going from farmers markets to retail stores. Between packaging, merchandising and getting onto store shelves, the whole thing is a long process. As a refrigerated item, gaining shelf space is competitive. Luckily, with Five Way Foods, once stores carry our broths, customers follow and buy.
Please tell us about Five Way Foods.
Five Way Foods is known for our all-natural, delicious and local-sourced bone broths, made from scratch with real vegetables, herbs, and bones. What really sets us apart is our fresh refrigerated vegetable, meat and fish bone broths for cooking and drinking. Our Broths are crafted with real-bones and ingredients sourced from New England farms (and ocean) which are slow simmered for long periods of time for maximum collagen, flavor and taste. All of our broths are clean label with no soy, gluten, dairy, sugar or preservatives.
The bone broth health trend has been proven with lab testing that slow simmering meat and fish bones releases nutrients only founded in bone broths. One of those nutrients is called Collagen, which has been proven good for digestive, skin, joint and immune system health.
I really enjoying hearing how customers use our broths. Whether it’s using as part of a recipe, making soups, risotto, chowder, smoothie or another way. Nothing beats how people make broth part of the diet! Recently, we started working with K-12 schools and kids have been enjoying our health broths within their soups and stews.
Contact Info:
- Website: www.fivewayfoods.com
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/fivewayfoods/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/fivewayfoods/
- Twitter: https://twitter.com/fivewayfoods?lang=en
Image Credit:
Wooden Spoon Studio
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