Spring 2008 issue of Terry Magazine - (Page 36)

he Knoxes have struck a mutually beneficial deal with Atlanta’s award-winning Woodfire Grill chef Michael Tuohy. He uses their cedar grilling planks in his kitchen — and Gena, who uses the Woodfire Grill to try out new recipes, gets to eat there free. “I was kind of her testing ground,” says Tuohy. rying well with pork and seafood respectively.) To keep the planks from catching fire on the grill, you soak them first in water, keeping them submerged with a wine bottle or other handy weight, and (usually) heat the plank on the grill before adding the food. Closing the grill’s lid captures the plank’s flavor and moisture in the food, and makes turning unnecessary. “We were just blown away with how easy and great it was,” says Gena. Her mother tried it too, with the same experience. “Gena,” Joan Neely told her, “you should sell these.” “The next thing I knew, her garage was full of planks,” says Neely. “She just really took it by the horns and ran with it.” Actually, a bit more work and research was involved. Gena was fascinated to learn that despite the technique’s ease, the planks themselves were difficult to find. Only one variety of cedar — Western Red — could be used for cooking. (Because of sap content and/or lumber treatment, it can actually be dangerous to ingest food grilled on the wrong kind of wood.) She decided to take her husband’s advice (“I wanted her to do something with her cooking,” says Davis), and packed her Volvo with cedar planks, taking them to the Merchandise Mart’s cash-and-carry market to sell for $5 apiece. (The couple’s first business decision: All products would be priced under $10, positioned as impulse buys.) “In two days, I sold $6,000 worth of planks,” says Gena. Says Davis: “That’s when I started writing the business plan.” While encouraging and helping to underwrite his wife’s entrepreneurial efforts, Davis was earning some valuable business experience on his own. At Air Serv, “I reported to C-levels [CEO, COO, CFO], but I had to deal with everybody, from teaching people how to take someone in a wheelchair through the airport, to the head of the company,” he says. “If I had a question, I could go straight to the CEO.” He found he could thrive even when his bosses “threw me in front of 200 people to give a demonstration.” “I’m really grateful for that,” he says. Davis helped out, on the side, with Gena’s company, which they named Sautee Cedar, for the north Georgia woods they loved. They looked on their efforts as an adventure, and never hesitated to call for help when they needed it. “We’re not the kind of people who think we know everything,” says Gena. She also wasn’t afraid of injecting herself into unfamiliar situations, at dinner one night marching up to Atlanta’s award-winning Woodfire Grill chef Michael Tuohy in his open kitchen, and introducing herself as a merchant of cedar planks, which Tuohy then used with wild salmon. “I’d been buying them at Home Depot in eightfoot lengths, and having them cut into 6-inch sections,” Tuohy 36 • Spring 2008 says. “She asked me, ‘If you had something better, would you use it?’” Tuohy, one of the first area chefs to focus on using local, organic meats and produce, likes to cultivate relationships with local providers. They made a deal — he would use Gena’s planks, and she would eat at the restaurant for free. More importantly, he says, “I was kind of her testing ground.” They gave each other feedback on techniques and recipes. Through Tuohy, the couple met specialty food consultant Athalee White. With the help of a local design firm, Green Olive Media, the Knoxes and White designed the company’s packaging and press materials. White also introduced the couple to the intricacies of specialty food marketing, where a product might linger for years on obscure shelves before breaking into a big chain store — if ever. They made a couple of important decisions: One, the planks should be sold with food and cooking supplies — not in home improvement. Two, says White, “We knew we would have to take our own shelving.” Meat and seafood departments often don’t have shelves to stock products, so they made arrangements to bring wooden stand-alone shelves, to be shipped packed with the products (later, they would use cardboard). After educating the couple on brokers who could market their product to stores, White set up an appointment with John Bowler, southeast regional buyer for Whole Foods Market. Gena demonstrated how to use the planks, and Bowler responded: “I’ll take two pallets.” “I thought, Do my ears deceive me? I was ecstatic,” says White. “We went back to the car, and I was almost jumping up and down. Gena was happy — but I don’t think she realized what just happened. You can wait two years to even see a buyer. All this nodding of heads — ‘Yes, your seafood is delicious!’ — doesn’t really help. But Gena is a great seller.” “They had a great product,” says Bowler, “but more important, she offered customer service. She and Davis were willing to answer customer questions — like, ‘It burned up when I used it!’ And she was willing to come into the stores to demonstrate.” White believes that Gena’s profile — young, female CEO with a great product and business support — didn’t hurt. Also, she says, “She could sell mud.” Davis’ background was key, too, she says: “He came from an area that helped him develop some great chops for this — working with people up and down the entire range of experience.” Which comes in handy when you’re hiring warehouse workers and choosing suppliers, plus drawing up projections and SWOT profiles. Terry College of BuSineSS FooD photography Courtesy oF Fire aND FLaVor

Table of Contents Feed for the Digital Edition of Terry School of Business - Spring 2008

Terry School of Business - Spring 2008 Contents Quick Bites Research & Innovation Gatherings Best CEO in America An Unlikely Rock Star Fire & Flavor Beyond the Bench Terry Memo Economic Scorekeeper Class Notes

Terry School of Business - Spring 2008

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