Seven Winds Kitchen Marketing Study

Company Profile

Seven Winds Kitchen and Gift Shop is a manufacturer of peanut brittle (“Bert’s Brittle”) and other treats and is run by sisters Jane Gammon and Frances Scruggs in Logan, Alabama. Beginning in 1984, Gammon and Scruggs made candy for ten years and gave it away to family and friends. This experience led them to create Seven Winds Kitchen and Gift Shop in 1994. It operated out of a kitchen on a piece of family-owned land. The business and its product lines have expanded, and Seven Winds Kitchen and Gift Shop now makes and sells fudge, cheese cookies, and baskets with various assortments, and provides catering for breakfast and lunch. The original peanut brittle recipe on which the business began was handed down by their mother, Berta Dee “Bert” Gammon, hence the signature product name “Bert’s Brittle.” Seven Winds Kitchen and Gift Shop grows its own cucumber, peppers, blueberries, blackberries and muscadines used in its various products. It also purchases many of its key ingredients, including peanuts and pecans, locally. In 2004 they were named Small Business Persons of the Year for Cullman County.

Situation

After incurring losses over a few years, Seven Winds Kitchen and Gift Shop needed consulting to help determine whether, after implementing changes, the business could become profitable enough to provide its owners with a livable income.

Solution

The Alabama Productivity Center focused its assistance on two aspects of Seven Winds Kitchen and Gift Shop. First, a product profitability analysis examined the true cost of producing, packaging, and delivering each product. Based on this analysis, the products that were not generating a profit were identified. The owners were provided with a custom spreadsheet tool that allows them to see costs of production, packaging, sales, and delivery. In addition, the Alabama Productivity Center provided Seven Winds Kitchen and Gift Shop with market research that identified additional sales venues and events, investigated potential business partnerships and examined effects of various advertising options.

Results

Using the custom spreadsheet tool, the Alabama Productivity Center identified $3,545 annually in potential packaging material savings for peanut and pecan brittle products, which is 17.1 percent of Cost of Goods Sold for those products, by utilizing more cost efficient packaging. In addition, the custom spreadsheet tool identified $1,592 in potential labor cost savings, equaling 3.5 percent of the labor cost of items associated with the project, by reducing their product mix and thereby increasing efficiency.