Sweet Louise
Randa Sweet knew she was on to something special when her future husband, Steven, became excited after trying her homemade ice cream sauce.
“It was the first thing I made for Steve that really lit him up because he isn’t very demonstrative of food,” she said.
Though she had been making the concoction of sugar, cocoa and peanut butter for several years for friends and family, it was Steven’s approval along with the help of a local women’s organization that turned Sweet’s idea into a business venture.
While attending a Women’s Entrepreneurial Network (WEN) meeting in November 2005, Sweet, who worked as an interior designer at the time, learned of the Agricultural Incubator Foundation, a nonprofit foundation that has a licensed commercial kitchen available to rent for food entrepreneurs in the region. Sweet said she knew she had to attempt taking her sauce to market when she learned of the kitchen. And so came the birth of Sweet’s company, Sweet Louise LLC.
“It literally came over me like a wave,” she said.
Perfecting the process of mass-producing the product, which is now named Sweet Louise Decadent Peanut Butter Fudge Sauce, took time, Sweet said. She went from making the sauce in nothing more than a pan to whipping up 15 to 20 gallons of it at a time. Sweet also had to gain the approval of a chemist for her manufacturing process and the Ohio Department of Agriculture for the sauce’s label.
It’s been more than a year since Sweet sold her first jar of the sauce at the Perrysburg Farmer’s Market, she said, and 17 stores in Northwest Ohio and Southeast Michigan now carry it. The sauce will soon be available in all Ohio State Park gift shops, she said.
Sweet said she performs product demonstrations throughout the region to market the sauce.
“I just love seeing the faces of the people. I get really extreme reactions in a good way,” Sweet said. “I always sell a lot when I do demos.”
Without the help of WEN, Sweet said she would not be in business. Through the networking organization, she said she was able to find her accountant and Web site designer. Several WEN members also serve on her company’s board of advisers.
As for the future of her business, Sweet said she hopes to one day own her own facility to produce her sauces and employ five to seven people full-time with benefits. She also wants to develop a sugar-free product line.
“I can’t save the world, but I’d like to employ five people at a living wage and benefits,” she said.
Sweet will announce four additions to her product line at the WEN conference next month that will consist of two preserves, a brownie mix and a scone mix.
For more information on Sweet’s products, visit www.sweetlouisesauces.com