Business Spotlight: Brownie Boom

It seemed natural for a chef from southwest Missouri to move back home to start a small food company, but he didn’t know that brownies would be his main breadwinner.

Blake Beshore and his wife, Teresa, are owners of Small Batch LLC, doing business as Small Batch Foods. They found that breakfast burritos were a wide-open market as they were not “a way of life” in Springfield when they moved here in 2016 from Denver. The next year, they founded Small Batch and started making burritos for business clients all over town and even shipping them to other states.

When egg prices started to spike after the COVID-19 pandemic, the Beshores decided to pivot. The profit margins on their egg-based burritos were dropping from about 30% to 5%, not to mention shipping frozen burritos was expensive. The Beshores found their niche in gluten-free brownies.

Blake worked as a chef when the couple lived in Colorado and was co-author of “Notes from a Kitchen: A Journey Inside Culinary Obsession.”

Blake says Small Batch tried several ingredients until they got the brownies just right and launched the product in 2022.

“We kept toying with the recipe until we got to the point where our friends and family that had gluten sensitivities could try it and all loved it,” Blake says. “Even people who aren’t gluten free have told us they like it.”

He says some of the ingredients include a fava bean and rice flour blend instead of almond flour, natural vanilla, chocolate chunks and palm shortening. Blake added that Small Batch has had its product tested for people with gluten sensitivity in various forms.

Building partnerships
Local vendors have been critical for the business duo. Teresa says their business has grown through word of mouth, reviews and similar avenues.

They originally sold burritos to CoxHealth, Mercy and Big Cedar, but brownies just weren’t the same market. Shifting products required a change in vendors too.

Currently, MaMa Jean’s Natural Market, Travellers House Coffee & Tea and the south Springfield Macadoodles carry Small Batch brownies. The vendors usually have them located in a freezer or refrigerated section, Blake says, as the shelf life is extended when kept cool. They are shelf stable for six weeks without refrigeration, but given the brownies include natural ingredients, they would spoil faster than most you can buy on a grocery store shelf.

Travellers House, co-owned by Greg and Cherie Venturella, was one of Small Batch’s first vendors for the brownie. They also have something else in common. Like Small Batch, Travellers House is certified as a woman-owned business: Cherie is 51% owner at Travellers House, just like Teresa is 51% owner at Small Batch.

Greg says Small Batch is a good fit because of that and because Travellers House already offered gluten-free options for customers looking for a drink and a treat. “We have gluten-free energy bars and quiche, so the brownies target are customers who are already coming here,” he says.

Greg says the brownie sells best at the airport location, Small Batch bakes all their brownies at Common Grounds Coffee Cafe & Bakery in Strafford. Although the site isn’t 100% gluten free, Small Batch uses their own tools and pans and prepares their workspace in advance for a gluten-free atmosphere. Teresa says they contract with Common Grounds to have help from their employees to bake; however, Small Batch itself only has Blake and herself as employees.

A new market
This year, the Beshores started selling their brownies online through Bubble Goods Inc., a company that caters to clients who want to shop at smaller local food companies.

Small Batch was recently featured as a baked goods seller on the site and was included in an ad campaign at no cost to the Beshores. Blake says the sales have grown about 10 times since the campaign launched in the past couple of weeks.

“This is a great way for us to reach a national audience,” Teresa says. “They really do focus on supporting local companies who are all committed to natural ingredients.”

Online, a box of 16 from Bubble Goods or the Small Batch website are $39.99, but they can also be purchased individually from the local Springfield vendors at varying price ranges.

Given the potential of the new product when the brownie was launched, Teresa decided to step away from her background in estate planning and trademark law to work solely for the company.

“It’s been a lot of fun,” she says. “We both have different strengths and weaknesses. It’s nice to do what we love. He is a great culinary mind, and I used to bake with my mom and grandma.”

The Beshores declined to disclose revenue, citing the pivot from burritos to brownies and the new deal with Bubble Goods. However, they make about 1,500 individual brownies per batch. The number of batches they make varies from week to week.

Looking ahead, they want to grow their sales and attract clients from all over the world, but Blake says they never want to change what makes their product special.

“The ingredients are very thought through,” he says. “We still make them in very small batches, and the hand touch is part of the love in the product.”