Able To Delegate
Interview with Jenny Ammirati
Co-Owner of Culture, An American Yogurt Company
331 Fifth Avenue, Brooklyn NY
www.cultureny.com
Interview by Kathryn Gordon
Kathryn: Hi
Jenny! I’ve been back over here to eat yogurt
periodically, but I haven’t seen you since you invited us to your launch,
almost 1 ½ years ago! How are you?
Jenny:
Great. As you can see, I just had
a baby and yesterday we were in the NY Post!
Unfortunately, Dannon apparently just opened a yogurt
shop in Manhattan that looks like our location, and incorporates “Culture” in
the name. We have our attorney working
on cease and desist letter. We found out
about it because our customers actually pointed it out to us. They thought we
had opened a second location already.
Kathryn:
Wow. That will be an interesting
process to go through and I’m sure going to keep you busy.
Kathryn:
Tell us a bit about your concept here at Culture.
Jenny:
Our mission is to provide a healthy snack alternative to those who crave
strained yogurt combined with artisanal toppings. Our fresh and frozen yogurt is made entirely
on the premises from local and organically sourced milks. We manufacture the probiotic yogurt and
toppings to ensure everything is extremely fresh. We are a certified dairy.
Essentially, we are a neighborhood shop (in Park Slope,
Brooklyn). We are open from the morning
to provide breakfast and through to the evening. We have communal tables for people to sit at,
and we are starting to promote neighborhood artists through an art show
installation.
One of the milk purveyors featured at Culture (for whole milk). They also offer Organic Valley milk products
in reduced fat, skim varieties.
Kathryn:
You’re open 7 days a week, for long days. Do you live nearby?
Jenny:
I live about 20 minutes away, and can walk here.
Kathryn:
OK, let’s go back to your decision to open a business after attending
the Pastry & Baking program at ICE (Institute of Culinary Management). Did you always know it would be in yogurt?
Jenny:
No! But while I was in school, I
did make a lot of yogurt at home. We
experimented a lot with freezing it. I
had wanted to open a traditional bakery, but once my husband and I were talking
about it, and we were actually eating our yogurt, we decided to open a yogurt
business instead!
We realized that there is nothing else like this
anywhere. Nobody was pasteurizing their
own milk using locally sourced products.
Kathryn: So
it wasn’t like you attended some “yogurt school” somewhere…
Jenny:
No. We both worked in finance
before, and my husband still does. I had
worked in some restaurants. We started
by testing the product at home to find the way we wanted to do the
manufacturing. I did the research and
found a machine from Holland to support our manufacturing method for the
pasteurization process.
Close up of Culture’s frozen yogurt
Kathryn:
Which agencies regulate a “dairy?”
Jenny:
We are under the NY State Department of Agriculture and the NYC
Department of Health. We’re very
regulated! There are inspections all the
time, so we’re used to it.
The Department of Agriculture inspection is every 2 months,
and they check the plant and test for bacteria in samples. The Department of Health inspection is only
once a year, and sometimes the inspectors change so a new person has to come up
to speed.
Kathryn:
Coming out of a culinary school, was undergoing your first inspection
for a new business scary?
Jenny:
Yes, but I’ve learned that if someone finds a little thing then you can
fix it while it’s little, that’s exactly how you want the process to work.
When I was researching our business, I went to the
Department of Health and they worked with us.
They told us who else to talk to and what would be needed for our pretty
unique set-up. My staff is very well trained
and know what the standards are that we must maintain.
Kathryn:
How do you find staff for Culture’s operations?
Menu board at Culture
Jenny:
I post a notice in the window.
My kitchen staff have been here long term. There is more turnover in the front of the
house. I learned not to staff with high
school kids, although college aged kids can be okay. Everyone is on a part-time schedule.
Kathryn: In
the kitchen, does everyone do everything?
Jenny: No, the yogurt making process is pretty
secret. Everyone knows how to make
toppings and our granola. My manager
knows how to pasteurize the milk and make our yogurts, as do I.
Kathryn:
Can you tell us a little about the secret process?
Jenny: We have frequent milk deliveries. Right now we’re pasteurizing overnight a few
days a week, but we could do more. The
curds are then strained through synthetic cheesecloth bags for 7-8 hours to
separate the whey.
Kathryn: I know initially you had a lot of excess
whey. Have you found a way to utilize
it? I know in France they sometimes use
it to feed pigs, but I imagine here in Park Slope that’s a bit of an impossibility…
Jenny:
We recently introduced a line of drinkable yogurts, and I incorporate
some whey in the formula.
Kathryn:
You gave birth to your baby daughter only a few months ago! How’s that going, managing a business and
your first baby?
Jenny:
Coming from a finance background, I was already very organized. To support your own business, you have to be
organized. If I become a little
disorganized, everything falls apart.
Everything here is run via checklists. There are separate checklists for opening, closing,
deep cleaning schedules – everything! I
pop in here frequently to check that they are filled out, and signed with times
noted down.
I can also monitor what’s happening via camera at my
house. I’m on the phone with staff every
day. What’s key to succeeding is
delegation. I knew that immediately and
set everything up here to run that way.
The more responsibility you give people the better they are. You also have to be good at interviewing
people and determining which tasks they will be best at and can be trusted
with.
After delegation, you need controls. Only 2 people ever cash out the register, for
example. If there’s a problem, I can
track it back via the security cameras.
So there haven’t been any problems.
View of the security cameras from Jenny’s
iPhone, installed by a security company
Kathryn: So
what’s next for you here at Culture?
Jenny:
We are working with a realtor now and looking into a second
location. I’m not entirely set yet where
it will be, or if it can be a retail only outlet. The refrigeration here probably will not
support a second location’s production.
We currently have 800 square feet here. It’s a limited space, and in the kitchen,
only 3 people can work simultaneously or they are on top of each other.
Kathryn: To
help promote your expansion, are you planning a lot of advertising?
Jenny:
Pretty much everything has been word-of-mouth. It’s paid the rent! We do have Facebook and Twitter, of course. That’s how we found out about the Dannon
venture.
Culture’s all word-of-mouth press
Kathryn:
Thanks Jenny! Let us know what happens next with the cease
and desist motion against a giant conglomerate versus a neighborhood
dairy. They must have totally loved your
business model, if they’ve emulated it….
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