Business Spotlight: Family recipe takes Dinah's Kitchen to 38 states

The first bite is crunchy, and you can taste the dill. Then a sweet flavor fills your mouth. The hot spice doesn't kick in, however, until after you've swallowed.

Dinah's Kitchen in Ozark has combined three distinct flavors into its signature, gourmet Sweet Hot Dill pickles. These pickles aren't just delicious, they're highly addictive. In fact, the Missouri Botanical Garden Society in St. Louis recently recognized the company's Sweet Hot Dills as one of the 100 Best Products in Missouri.

Dinah Shepard and Susan Keene began thinking about starting their own gourmet food business a little more than a year ago while vacationing in New York. Shepard gave several jars of Sweet Hot Dills to some friends as a gift, and one jar wound up in the hands of a local restaurant owner who promptly offered to buy the recipe.

Shepard didn't sell the recipe, which had been in her family for years. However, she was intrigued that someone was willing to pay for it.

Keene also was intrigued. After the two returned home, she took 95 jars of gourmet Sweet Hot Dills in to work just to see if they would sell. Within 30 minutes, all 95 jars were sold, and Keene began taking orders for more.

"We knew then that we really had something special," Shepard said. "So, we talked things over, and we decided to go into business together."

At the time Shepard was running a mobile dog grooming business and Keene was working as a trainer for a local telemarketing company. They quit their jobs, pooled their savings and contacted the Missouri Department of Health to see what they needed to do to open a gourmet food business.

After receiving the guidelines, they began converting a small building on Shepard's property into an industrial kitchen. By March 2000, the renovations were complete and Dinah's Kitchen opened for business.

Initially, Dinah's Kitchen sold only Sweet Hot Dill Pickles and Sweet Hot Dill Relish, which are the company's signature products. However, customers and store owners alike soon began asking if the company made any other gourmet foods.

"We discovered we had brand-name power," Keene said. "So, we began experimenting, and we developed several other products."

These products include Sweet Hot Sweet Pickles, Sweet Hot Sweet Relish, Sweet Heat Pickles, Sweet Heat Relish, beef jerky, gourmet nuts, blended cooking oil and gourmet spices.

Having established their product line, Shepard and Keene began working to build their customer base. They bought a small trailer, packed it full of gourmet food products and began selling their wares at art and craft fairs around the country. With every sale, they included a customer reordering form.

Their sales strategy worked. Within a few months, Shepard and Keene received dozens of reorder forms, and they began shipping gourmet food products and gift baskets to customers in 38 states.

They also began marketing their products locally. Several area stores such as Murfins Market, I.B. Nuts & Fruit Too, The Kitchen Pantry, The Rabbit Patch Gift Shop, Springfield Coffee Company, Sara's Country Collectibles, Missouri Gifts, the Dutch Pantry, Carl's Meat, Eggs and More, Anton's Coffee Shop and Merrick's White Oak Country Store began carrying products from Dinah's Kitchen

Dinah's Kitchen was growing quickly, and Shepard and Keene realized they would have to restructure the business so they could keep up with demand. Shepard stuck with pickle-and relish-making, while Keene took on sales, marketing and ordering inventory. A bookkeeper was hired, and small tasks, such as making labels, were farmed out to local subcontractors. Despite streamlining operations, Shepard and Keene found they still were struggling to keep up with demand.

"Part of the problem is our lead time," Keene said. "It takes 28 days to make the pickles and relishes we sell. To avoid getting behind during peak periods, we began using a subcontractor. The subcontractor only handles the pickling process, which takes 21 days. Once the cucumbers go through the pickling process, they come back here. Dinah adds the sugar and spices that give the pickles their flavor, and then each batch ferments for seven days."

Although Dinah's Kitchen has grown rapidly, Shepard and Keene are constantly looking for ways to expand their business. Recently they hired a sales representative, who is hawking the company's products to restaurants and gourmet food suppliers in central Missouri. One chain store with more than 318 locations has indicated they may be interested in carrying Dinah's Kitchen products.

"If a restaurant chain or store chain winds up stocking our products, we'll have to move our business to a location in Ozark that has good semi-truck access," Keene said. "We'll have to hire more people. It'll be a whole new ballgame."

In the meantime, Shepard and Keene are working on attracting more business locally, and they're considering hiring another sales representative. They're also working to attract more national customers by establishing an online store on the World Wide Web.