Today we’d like to introduce you to Hillary Souza.
Hillary, can you briefly walk us through your story – how you started and how you got to where you are today.
I always felt like I was born to be a business owner, especially a food service business owner. I was always fascinated with how restaurants and bakeries worked. As a young girl, I would constantly drive my Mother crazy by making up restaurant concepts and menus and making her play with me so I could demonstrate my creativity as a chef. “Place your order”, I would demand.
As I grew older, I still had an obsessive love for all things food, however, I felt my true calling was with Veterinary medicine. In college I studied Animal Science to prepare for this glamorous degree of a DVM. Throughout my adolescence and teenage years, I convinced everyone that I was the epitome of a Veterinarian, it made complete sense to me, or so I thought. I know realize that owning and loving animals does not always translate into a very challenging Veterinary career.
I did earn a Bachelor’s degree in Animal Science but I never was a good enough student to get into Vet School, it was looking more clear that my career path might not be involved with animals. As I got into my early twenties, my future husband, a long time veteran of the food service industry invited me back into the food service world with the idea of opening up a take-out restaurant. I worked in food service, at a takeout restaurant through college for some extra spending cash. We decided to take the leap and our restaurant opened in 2000.
After having my daughter in 2001, I felt as if the full time medical sales representative life was not for me, so I resigned my Boston based career and opted to work part time as a veterinary technician. At this time, I also wanted to sell my cookies at our restaurant because I knew my unique recipes were so good and, again, I still felt I needed recognition of my culinary skills. A little Sunday afternoon bake fest turned into a lot more then I had originally planned. The enticing world of entrepreneurship IN food service was now calling for me, big time. After just one or two months, I decided I need to differentiate my cookies from other companies and started printing edible images (printed with food coloring on pressed frosting sheets) which we then applied to these great cookie recipes. It all seemed to make sense. I could now offer a product that was fresh, new, different AND delicious. I could now rope in hundreds, if not thousands of people to try my Menus and play bakery with ME.
Things started growing fast after placing a local ad in the paper and building a website. I needed one employee right away to keep up, then two, then 3 a few weeks later. We grew out of our restaurant and Veronica’s Treats needed our own place. We started shipping nation-wide and built a strong presence across the country. We stayed in this 800 sq. foot facility for 2 years until the concept of banging into each other while making custom sweets just did not seem right. So, I found a great new space, was able to design it however I wanted and before I knew it Veronica’s Treats was up and running in 3, ooo sq. feet.
The years have been a roller coaster. We have done some amazing things, like having our products spotlighted on the Today Show…twice. Veronica’s Treats products were on Rachael Ray, featured as the snack of the day. We have made props for NBC, made countless celebrity gifts, been featured in celebrity SWAG bags and sent some of the most famous people our SWEET goods The recession was quite tough as the kind of products Veronica’s Treats make are certainly a luxury item and most Americans were finding way to cut costs, not add expensive party favors to their parties. Even the largest corporate clients I had like Hallmark, TV Guide and Microsoft were placing less and less corporate orders. I had to give up equity in my business and take on a partner to make this work financially. My partner shared the vision of hand crafted, high quality, unique sweets, so the choice was easy.
Veronica’s Treats weathered the storm. I think it has to do with the quality of product and service we offer. We aren’t ashamed to hand hold our customers and walk them through every step of ordering custom treats. We provide top notch customer service and our reputation is stellar. I reinvent Veronica’s Treats every year, coming up with new products, keeping my product line fresh and different. Different is the key word here. We are different, we tailor our products to the customer’s choice: THEIR photo, THEIR color choices or THEIR flavor choices. Everything is made by hand. Cookies are still cut-out by hand, cake balls for cake pops are hand rolled, Oreos are hand dipped and molds are hand painted with brilliant chocolate colors. All products are packaged by hand and tied with ribbons and bows. My wonderful staff, some have worked over 10 years for Veronica’s Treats, produce the product that I visualize in my head. I am a great baker, but not a good detail decorator. What I AM good at is finding the talent who have exceptional skills and can take my vision and create exactly what I was in my head. They can even make it even better and we then sell the heck out of it! That is what makes me proud: coming up with a new product and having it soar! That little girl making menus at age 8 really had something.
Of course life is crazy for me as with most entrepreneurs. I work countless number of hours each week. I probably do too much and my type A personality does not allow me to easily delegate tasks. I am slowly but surely giving away responsibilities I should have given up 10 years ago. It certainly became tough trying to raise a young child while growing a thriving business. I had my fair share of sadder moments when I realized I was not spending as much quality time with my daughter, Veronica as I had hoped. I needed every last available minute in the day to respond to emails, build a new and better website and set up all the artwork for each customer order. I would even stay up past midnight to get it all done, then start back fresh the next day, 7 days a week. To this day I get through the lasting regret by reminding myself what a great role model I am for my daughter. She is certainly proud of me as I can juggle many hats: A Woman business owner, a wife, a friend and especially a loving Mother.
Veronica’s Treats now has 12 employees and we produce product for 1800flowers, grocery chains, coffee chains and so much more. Each of the hundreds of packages we ship out each week thoroughly and thoughtfully goes through a multi-step quality assurance process. Veronica’s Treats is growing at a great and comfortable pace. I am excited to see where we will be in 2018 as we fill our 3,000 square feet to capacity, bumping each to each other like back in the day.
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?
The recession was quite tough as the kind of products Veronica’s Treats make are certainly a luxury item and most Americans were finding way to cut costs, not add expensive party favors to their parties. Even the largest corporate clients I had like Hallmark, TV Guide and Microsoft were placing less and less corporate orders. I had to give up equity in my business and take on a partner to make this work financially. My partner shared the vision of high quality, unique sweets, so the choice was easy,
Running a food service business is quite challenging. Cash flow issues are always present. Some customers have terms greater than 60 days which can be tough especially if they are large customers like 1800flowers. Fixed expenses and payroll is always high and it is quite difficult to balancing having enough staff to fulfill orders during our busy holiday season, to having too much staff when we slow down during the slower months. It is a balancing game every year.
Since we are licensed by the town (retail) and state (wholesale), we have to adhere to a very strict food safety code. We go by the FDA standards and are audited twice a year. There is always room for improvement and we are always updating our standard operating procedures to keep up with the sanitation code that is constantly updated and forever changing, especially food nutritional and ingredient labels.
Alright – so let’s talk business. Tell us about Veronica’s Treats – what should we know?
Veronica’s Treats specializes in hand crafted custom sweets. Our product line includes: custom cookies, cake pops, decorated Oreos, brownies, custom pretzels and so much more. We try to do things DIFFERENT and BETTER. We don’t just sell sweets, we sell hand crafted personalized sweets with your pictures, saying, choices, etc. We are known for exceptional quality, customer service and flexibility. Our hundreds of rave reviews on our website speak volumes. Our products arrive across the country impeccably. Even the most fragile of products arrive in one piece due to our countless testing. Our customers come back year after year as they can count on great quality and new and different things they can offer their party guest or send as memorable gifts. They want to stand out, we help them stand out.
Is there a characteristic or quality that you feel is essential to success?
I am a great problem solver. In fact, that will be on my tombstone. If a problem occurs, something that seems insurmountable to everyone else, I will not sleep until that problem is solved. I work super hard and sometimes I can be seen in the trenches, taping up boxes, trying to make sure all packages get out of the door by 6pm, UPS pick up time. The holidays are a time that every pair of hands counts.
I have an strong ability to hire and motivate staff. I have always stated that I want employees to work for me, to want to be part of this fast paced train called Veronica’s Treats,
I try to be a very approachable boss. I always insist my staff feels free to communicate any issues they have.
I try to remember to say “Thank you” to my valuable staff every day. I tell them as much as possible how hard I think they work and how valued they are. They need to know they are who produce the product that sells well, makes Veronica’s Treats successful and know I wouldn’t be where I am without their hard work and dedication.
Contact Info:
- Address: 31 W Grove St
Middleboro, MA 02346 - Website: veronicastreats.com
- Phone: 5089464438
- Email: info@veronicastreats.com
- Instagram: instagram.com/veronicastreats
- Facebook: facebook.com/veronicastreats
- Twitter: twitter.com/veronicastreats
- Yelp: yelp.com/biz/veronicas-treats-middleboro
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