“Teabag” and “broth” are two words that nobody would expect to be in a sentence together, but woman-owned business Art of Broth just made that sentence. This powderized form of bone broth fits into a single-use teabag, and all customers need to do is drop it into some hot water. Just like that, broth on the go!
This novel business idea has given an easy resource to gourmet-broth-enjoyers nationwide, since it’s online. Sophie Helfend, the business’ owner, is running the show by herself entirely through her Instagram and her website.
Most broth companies sell to corporations such as grocery stores, restaurants, and the like. Art of Broth closes the gap between seller and consumer by dealing directly with customers, which is why it’s so important. Helfend speaks with buyers directly and has found that it forms a relationship and knowledge with the customer that is otherwise unachievable.
This unconventional method of selling soup directly to the consumer was created and cemented by Jody Helfend, Sophie’s father, in 2019 to widen their audience. Originally, the family business was only serving 10 pound vats of soup to hotels and restaurants, which is typical for a soup company. However, this one-person-serving revolutionized their product which is now fully based around the “tea”bags.
When Helfend’s father asked her and her brothers to take over the business so it wasn’t bought out, she jumped at the chance and was happy to keep something that had been such a strong part of her childhood in the lineage.
“I like to joke that 90% of my blood is like chicken broth. Like I grew up going to meat plants with my dad, going to trade shows with my family, we were taste testing soup all the time,” said Helfend. “So soup is really in our DNA, and that’s why taking over this company just felt like such a natural progression of the family business, and I didn’t want it to die, because it was a big part of my childhood.”
Taking over the business presented a major question for Helfend: how should she promote this product? Advertisement is expensive, especially when it involves a business in L.A. and a one woman show. She decided on using Instagram as an advertising platform.
“Instagram really allowed me to create a digital footprint or a digital store of my business, and I was able to communicate just directly with my consumers. And I think most brands kind of fall into this like, Oh, we’re really corporate, and we have a message, which is great, but we don’t really know who runs the company … And I wanted to have a brand where, if someone said, like, oh, who runs the art of broth, they know exactly who it is. It’s Sophie.”
Helfend explained how important it was for her to have a direct relationship with her customers. She is the only person working at Art of Broth, and it’s better for her to be able to speak directly to consumers if they have a problem with shipping or have feedback for her. She has found that through talking to customers herself, she’s able to understand people’s preferences better.
“Talking directly to a customer just helps me as a brand so much because it tells me, oh, customers that are living in this area don’t like this flavor because of this reason, or customers in this area will use the product three times as much that in this region because of this,” she said.
Using Instagram as a major platform has not presented any problems for Helfend. The bigger conflict comes from being a young woman in the food industry, according to her.
“Food service is a really relationship driven business, and I think there’s a lot of people in the industry that will say, hey, if you’re a female minority owned business, that’s great. We love to see it. They don’t always treat you like that,” said Helfend. “They almost kind of–I say this because I’ve had a rough day–but they almost kind of use it against you. I feel like I’ve had people take advantage of early stage brands with discounts or buybacks, and they don’t really give a rhyme or reason.”
Small businesses commonly have to deal with mistreatment from larger corporations or go through a struggle period without much income. While female-owned or minority-owned businesses are promoted more, especially in the Los Angeles area, Helfend said that it isn’t as applauded as most companies make it seem.
“I would say the quality that you need to succeed online is relentless persistence. You’re not going to go viral on your first video or your fifth video or your 100th video, you’re likely to go viral on your 7,000th video,” said Helfend. “And I think it’s so important for founders to know that it’s a volume game and you just have to keep posting, keep trying and start just taking little tidbits of what worked and what didn’t work… as long as you just continue to learn what’s working, what’s not working, and just keep kind of improving over time, then social media is incredible.”
Visit https://www.theartofbroth.com/ or find her online at https://www.instagram.com/theartofbroth/ for more information.
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