Pursuing your Passion with Dawn Pascale
Meet Dawn Pascale
Dawn Pascale, owner and creative mind behind Om Sweet Home, has always enjoyed making decadent treats for family and friends with the most wholesome, healthy ingredients. From a very early age, she was always passionate about cooking and baking. After 20+ years as an HR Professional, Dawn decided to pursue her passion full-time. And in February 2013, she signed up for the Natural Gourmet Institute’s Vegan Baking Bootcamp. She loved the challenge of making products that not only taste good but are good for you. After recognizing a growing need in her community for high-quality baked goods made with natural ingredients, Dawn launched Om Sweet Home in May 2013.
Episode Highlights
During this episode of The Food Means Business Podcast, we discuss:
Dawn’s transition from Corporate America to launching her own wholesale vegan baking business
Using customer feedback to adapt her gluten-free recipes to become vegan, soy free, and palm oil free
Creating and launching her own vegan butter product
Adventures with opening and growing her own brick & mortar retail store
The tough decision to pivot post pandemic and focus on growing her CPG business
Choosing self-care to recover from personal setbacks and rebuild her business
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00;00;00;02 - 00;00;22;19
Dawn Pascale
Hello, everyone. Welcome to the Food Means Business podcast. I'm here with Don Pascale of Home Sweet Home, and she's going to tell us all about her entrepreneurial journey. Full disclosure, Don and I have known each other, I don't know, eight years or so since I started this Hudson Kitchen journey. So I know a little bit about her story, but we're going to hear all about everything, so we'll jump in.
00;00;22;20 - 00;00;23;03
Djenaba
Hi, Dawn
00;00;23;04 - 00;00;25;19
Dawn Pascale
Hi, Djenaba So excited to be here.
00;00;26;04 - 00;00;35;24
Djenaba
I'm so excited that you're here. It's so great. So we are all about making a transition from the cubicle to being a CEO. So we'd love to hear your story.
00;00;37;01 - 00;01;02;12
Dawn Pascale
Yeah. So I think my story is probably similar to a lot of other, you know, food entrepreneurs who decided that the corporate life was no longer for them and and wanted to really follow the passion that was in their heart. So my a very short version of a long story, I always wanted to cook and bake and and literally had a love for it since I was five years old.
00;01;03;01 - 00;01;29;27
Dawn Pascale
But I followed the corporate life and got a finance degree and, you know, did the whole Wall Street thing and in 2005, I actually started my own business and I did that on the side and used my coworkers as, you know, test subjects and taste testers. And that was all traditional based. And and in 2013, you know, the universe said, see, you buy you know, you're now on to your you know, your next thing.
00;01;29;27 - 00;01;53;02
Dawn Pascale
And and a month later I took a vegan baking course at the Natural Gourmet Institute and I will always give props to Chef Fran Costigan because it was an amazing experience and it taught me so much. And I said, I'm just going to take a chance and do it. So by May or June of that year 2013, I had my first wholesale customer and, and my business began.
00;01;53;15 - 00;01;59;24
Djenaba
That's amazing. So talk about kind of like what you what you did. So you had your first wholesale customer. What was the goal at the time?
00;02;00;11 - 00;02;29;18
Dawn Pascale
So the goal at the time was to get as many wholesale customers as I conceivably could and also learn how to sell a food product. Right? And I've always been in a client service base business. So having a conversation with someone and selling something that you love and you're passionate about to me sounded pretty easy, right? So I rented a kitchen space in Hoboken and that's how we met, right?
00;02;29;18 - 00;02;38;07
Dawn Pascale
Because I was looking for kitchen spaces and you were going to be building yours. And in probably a year or two from that time.
00;02;38;07 - 00;02;39;24
Djenaba
And it ended up being like four years.
00;02;40;12 - 00;03;02;01
Dawn Pascale
Right? Or something like that. Right. But yes, you know, but, you know, they were very they were very few and far between and hard to come by. So I rented the kitchen space and I started, you know, really baking by myself and and just sort of peddling my stuff around town in Hoboken to places that I felt had the same vibe as my business.
00;03;02;10 - 00;03;22;15
Dawn Pascale
And at the time, I was still doing some traditional stuff. And because I'd learned so much in the vegan platform, I decided that I was going to have a couple of products and a vegan line. And when I first approached some, you know, customers and businesses, they first of all were like, What is vegan mean? So I had to go through all of that.
00;03;22;23 - 00;03;46;28
Dawn Pascale
And then they said, Well, we really don't want vegan, we want gluten free. So I took the challenge and took my four base recipes and changed them to be vegan and gluten free and and that's really how the brand grew from there. And I and I sort of, you know, found myself getting into places that, like I said, really had sort of the same vibe as I did.
00;03;47;01 - 00;03;50;21
Djenaba
So talk a little about the four base recipes. What type of products were you baking?
00;03;51;08 - 00;04;25;06
Dawn Pascale
So there was a banana bread. There was some sort of crumb cake, you know, a muffin and a cookie. And and it was really very basic. And I come from a very analytic, sort of curious I.T. mindset. So my idea of how to grow the the different, you know, variations in products was what base recipe can I make and then change one or two or a couple of more things about it to then make it into the next product and so on and so on.
00;04;25;11 - 00;04;49;09
Dawn Pascale
And that's kind of how I build. I built the whole product line and by I think 2015, I decided that, you know, the Z to Z traditional stuff that I made really just wasn't going to fly anymore. And I decided to really just hone in on being vegan and gluten free and soy free and palm oil free, you know, and sort of the brand grew from there.
00;04;49;21 - 00;04;56;08
Djenaba
So you talk about being palm oil free. Tell us how you got there and what kind of came out of the need that need.
00;04;56;09 - 00;05;20;08
Dawn Pascale
Yeah. So, you know, when you when you listen to people, you know, you listen to customers feedback on what the ingredients are in your in their product, you know, obviously there is ethical, moral, medical reasons why people have to be vegan or have to be gluten free or want to be. And, you know, palm oil for me was one of those things that it just had too much confusion around it.
00;05;20;18 - 00;05;41;09
Dawn Pascale
And there were only really two products that had palm oil in it. It was the peanut butter that I was using, and it was the nondairy vegan butter that I was using. So the peanut butter, I hooked up with a really very cool local company. Nick Peanut butter boy, he was fabulous. And he had two ingredients. Peanuts and salt works for me.
00;05;41;09 - 00;06;00;28
Dawn Pascale
Great. So I wound up hooking up with him and he became my peanut butter supplier. And the butter was a little bit more difficult because there really wasn't anything on the market that didn't have palm oil, that didn't have soy, and then didn't have all of the other parameters and criteria that I needed, you know, the product not to have.
00;06;01;08 - 00;06;03;11
Dawn Pascale
So I developed my own.
00;06;03;11 - 00;06;10;14
Djenaba
So and that butter is delicious. Like, you can't tell that it's not dairy butter.
00;06;10;14 - 00;06;11;05
Dawn Pascale
That's the point.
00;06;11;05 - 00;06;12;09
Djenaba
Yeah, that's fantastic.
00;06;12;09 - 00;06;13;08
Dawn Pascale
Thank you. Thank you.
00;06;13;11 - 00;06;26;09
Djenaba
So let's talk about so it's 2015. You give up traditional making traditional products. You kind of go all in on being gluten free and vegan. You create your own butter. I like to talk about like kind of the next couple of years and what happened.
00;06;26;09 - 00;06;54;07
Dawn Pascale
So from there, the butter. So I developed the recipe back in 14. We used it in house and by 15 I wound up branding it and selling it in little retail packs because people were asking for it. So that's sort of how the butter platform grew. And then from there I got more and more customers and I was doing my own delivery and now I had, you know, a big supplier coming in and bringing me ingredients in my space and storage upstairs was getting bigger and bigger.
00;06;54;19 - 00;07;15;27
Dawn Pascale
And I finally realized, I just can't do this anymore. And I was really happy because I was really waiting for the moment when the, you know, the the it was going to be stretched so much that I really couldn't sustain. And I knew that if I stayed there, I would only grow to what that capacity allowed me to.
00;07;16;08 - 00;07;38;05
Dawn Pascale
So at that point in time, I had moved out of Hoboken and I lived in Hoboken for like 19 years, and I moved up to Cliffside Park, and one day I'm taking a random drive down Anderson Avenue, which is their main street in town, and I see the space and one thing led to another. And January of 17, I opened my doors.
00;07;38;05 - 00;07;45;08
Dawn Pascale
So now I had my own dedicated kitchen. And then I had an opportunity not to sell retail as well.
00;07;45;24 - 00;07;52;00
Djenaba
So let's talk about selling retail because you really were focused on wholesale. So adding retail, what was that like adding retail to the business?
00;07;53;03 - 00;08;22;22
Dawn Pascale
I, I, how do I answer that without cursing? So yeah, wholesale is very different from retail. Scuse me. So my wholesale customers, my retail customers were wonderful too. The focus is just really very different. And there's, you know, with wholesale you can sort of have your, your customers understand the process beyond a standard order, know that things are done on a weekly basis.
00;08;22;22 - 00;08;45;20
Dawn Pascale
They get their delivery on the day that they are supposed to get their delivery. And it's really very systematic retail, not so much, you know, the first six months, you know, I got a lot of press. We had, you know, a ribbon cutting. You were there with a whole bunch of other friends and family and the first six months was really like, I'm testing the waters.
00;08;45;20 - 00;09;13;29
Dawn Pascale
We're seeing. We're seeing what we're doing. So 2017 was a little bit of a struggle to try to build up the retail because again, it's Cliffside Park. I really then became sort of a destination place and I knew as the years, you know, months in years past that I had a lot of people that traveled to me from Upper Bergen County, from West, you know, and they came to me and stopped and they didn't cross the bridge and go into the city anymore.
00;09;14;18 - 00;09;27;18
Dawn Pascale
And I did have a lot of people that then came up north, you know, from Hoboken and Jersey City. And and I had a nice, loyal following. You know, and but it took but it took a while to to build to build that that stability on the retail side.
00;09;28;06 - 00;09;34;00
Djenaba
So 2020 happened. Yeah. And let's talk about what happened to that business.
00;09;34;09 - 00;09;59;23
Dawn Pascale
So you know when we started to get the notifications around March, I think in conversations with some of my other wholesale customers, they were like, Nah, we're not going to close, we're not going to have to. And I think that we were all so globally confused about what was going on that it was really hard to take. The whole concept of your whole life is being shut down.
00;10;00;10 - 00;10;18;11
Dawn Pascale
You have to stay in your house and close your doors. And it was like, What? How do I translate that? So really, it really was easy for me. I don't mean to say it that way to close the wholesale side because all of my wholesale was closed, right? And that was it. So I had literally no more wholesale customers.
00;10;18;15 - 00;10;40;10
Dawn Pascale
And that includes Whole Foods, right? Whole Foods stopped ordering. Everybody stopped ordering. And then, you know, by mid-March, I just said to my retail customers, I'm sorry, I can't do this. Like, I'm not an essential business. I can't stay open. Some of them didn't believe me and thought that I was essential. And I appreciate that. I appreciate the love.
00;10;40;10 - 00;10;42;11
Djenaba
You know, I need my gluten free muffin.
00;10;42;18 - 00;11;08;18
Dawn Pascale
I need it. I get it. I understand. Yes. Sorry. Can't do that. You know, so. So I closed for the three months and over the three months, I tried to do some, you know, take out orders. And and I said, how do I reinvent the retail space where I can make it super easy and safe for me to be there with potentially one or two other of my staff and keep my customers safe.
00;11;08;18 - 00;11;30;14
Dawn Pascale
So I had up and walk up window installed and I worked on changing my website and I had online ordering and I literally couldn't have made it any easier for people and retail just never came back. So for about a year, I, I was functioning at about a 50% loss.
00;11;30;15 - 00;11;30;24
Djenaba
Wow.
00;11;31;28 - 00;11;33;08
Dawn Pascale
That's a lot. That's a lot of money.
00;11;33;08 - 00;11;34;16
Djenaba
That's a lot of money. That is.
00;11;34;16 - 00;11;52;03
Dawn Pascale
And it's a lot of time and it's a lot of effort. And but I get it. I you know, I understand people just weren't, you know, functioning the same way that they were before. I'm trying not to use the word normal because I don't even know what normal is anymore at this point. Right. They just weren't functioning the same way they were.
00;11;52;10 - 00;11;59;15
Dawn Pascale
So, yeah. So retail never really came back. Wholesale did booming. Wholesale was booming.
00;11;59;15 - 00;12;09;11
Djenaba
So let's talk about wholesale for just a little bit. So you were wholesaling into some cafes, some grocery stores. Let's talk about a little bit some of the smaller places that you did and also Whole Foods as well as.
00;12;09;22 - 00;12;36;13
Dawn Pascale
Yeah, so wholesale, wholesale came back in gangbusters. So I was wholesaling the baked goods, I was wholesaling the butter. Whole Foods never really came back to the same capacity because again, I was part of their AM, you know, counter as they call it, which was a place where people could open the doors and stick their hands in, hopefully with a paper and grab a muffin and throw it in the bag.
00;12;36;14 - 00;13;06;28
Dawn Pascale
And, and that concept really wasn't going to work anymore. So I spoke with the bakery lead and they were really very nice and helpful in trying to bring me back. And I did get back into one of the stores and I packaged individually, packaged everything and I and that was a conscious decision that I made that I knew that I was taking a hit on that and not charging them, but I really wanted to get my stuff back into Whole Foods and it just didn't it just didn't fly anymore.
00;13;07;05 - 00;13;21;27
Dawn Pascale
Yeah. And so now I have a really expensive, cute bakery that costs a lot of money to maintain. And and I don't have the retail business to support it, so, you know. So now what do you do?
00;13;23;03 - 00;13;23;24
Djenaba
So what did you do?
00;13;23;29 - 00;13;52;13
Dawn Pascale
What I do? So what I did was in July, on July 31st, 2021, you know, a couple of months prior to that, my landlords came in. They were, you know, a very nice family that that owns the building, said, we don't want to see you go anywhere. But, you know, the lease is up now is okay. Yeah. So I thought about it and I thought about it some more and I cried and I and I prayed and I cried and, you know, whatever.
00;13;52;13 - 00;14;33;06
Dawn Pascale
I went through all the motions and. And I didn't renew the lease and that was it. I just, I knew that for me to sustain and try to bring a retail business back would cost me anywhere from 30 to 50000. Right, for the year. Right. Right. I'm thinking about it from a year standpoint, so I would have had to renew to lease got into another three year plus contract another you know, upfront money and costs, etc., etc. to get all of that done and then sort of price out what it's going to cost me on a monthly basis to try to beg people to come back to the space.
00;14;33;16 - 00;14;56;29
Dawn Pascale
And and I said there's so much more that I could do outside of the space where I could use the money and it would be better well-spent. And that is, you know, nothing to the loyalty of the wonderful customers that came in and supported me for the for, you know, four and a half years, etc., etc.. It's just it just didn't make good business sense to do it.
00;14;57;15 - 00;15;14;26
Djenaba
So talk about what you were going through at that time, you know, personally. Right. And like, what kind of what did you learn from all of this? Because you had been in business for several years now? Yep. There's been a ton of ups and downs. What did you learn in like what was next for you?
00;15;14;26 - 00;15;38;10
Dawn Pascale
So 2020 had a lot of personal changes and loss. You know, for me and my family. My dad unexpectedly died in November and that thank you. And and that really sort of screwed me up. You know, he was a very he let's just put it this way. My dad was always the constant voice of reason, end of story.
00;15;38;10 - 00;16;01;17
Dawn Pascale
That was that that was that that was his role. And, you know, he came into the shop every day. And, you know, my mom had had had also been going through some medical staff and he was the caretaker for her. And it was really very it was just a really horrible time, you know, So we lose him and and then I realize then I'm not feeling great.
00;16;01;17 - 00;16;28;19
Dawn Pascale
Right. And it's not COVID related. It's eight years of neglect, right? And so on and so on and so on. So so really, when it when it was really time to, you know, let the space go, it was letting the space go so I could care for myself and get myself to a better space. And and I always use this analogy, though I never applied it to myself.
00;16;29;05 - 00;16;44;16
Dawn Pascale
Funny, right? But I always use this analogy with other people when they asked and I said, you know, when you get on an airplane, what do they show you? They show the parent putting the mask on themselves and then on the child. Right. Because if you don't take care of yourself, how are you going to take care of anybody else?
00;16;45;18 - 00;17;08;23
Dawn Pascale
So I learned my lesson and said, I need to start taking care of myself before I'm able to then either take care of someone else, someone else being my business, someone else being my customers, someone else being, you know, whomever, you know, the rest of my family and so on and so on. So it was yeah, you know, it was it was a smack in the face, but.
00;17;09;21 - 00;17;10;10
Djenaba
It's, you know.
00;17;10;17 - 00;17;13;06
Dawn Pascale
Yeah, I needed to list, I needed, I needed it, I needed it.
00;17;13;06 - 00;17;31;12
Djenaba
It is personally speaking, so challenging to take that time for yourself, right? Because I don't know about you, but my wheels are constantly turning. Always like I wake up in the middle of the night going, okay, I need to do X, Y, and Z. Right? Right. Even though I've made, you know, I do other things that they told you to do.
00;17;31;12 - 00;17;37;28
Djenaba
Like you make a list before you go to bed or like, whatever you think, get through what you do the next day and it doesn't matter. Like, I'm it's constantly turning.
00;17;38;03 - 00;18;09;19
Dawn Pascale
Yeah. So, you know, I found, you know, there's a, you know, you find little things about yourself and whether or not you, you know, follow astrology or understand astrology or understand, you know, your own chart or whatever, whatever I know that I am, I'm astrologically the person that I am, right? So the things that I know that I will do being Taurus Rising is I will work myself into the ground, sort of like a bull does when they plow the field.
00;18;09;19 - 00;18;34;10
Dawn Pascale
So, you know, if you really think about it, not that I want to acquaint myself to a bull, you know, sometimes I feel like that, but you get what I mean, right? In all seriousness. So. So I've learned, you know, I've adopted new practices on a daily basis to not get myself back into that same situation. So I find that I meditate every single morning.
00;18;34;11 - 00;18;55;23
Dawn Pascale
Well, there should be no reason why you can't take 5 to 10 minutes or more if you happen to have that time in the morning to center yourself, clear your mind. And I find that my sleeping has gotten better. And yes, I do make lists and yes, I do keep mental lists and I try to get them out of my head and on the paper.
00;18;55;23 - 00;19;17;26
Dawn Pascale
Right. And I also do a little meditation at night if I feel that I'm like super amped up and I can't seem to, you know, get myself to a restful place again, it's back to that, that understanding that if I don't get a really good night's sleep, you don't want to talk to me the next day, you know, like I don't want to.
00;19;17;26 - 00;19;19;02
Djenaba
Talk to me the next day.
00;19;19;10 - 00;19;20;29
Dawn Pascale
And I'm not going to be productive either.
00;19;20;29 - 00;19;33;12
Djenaba
So it's true. It's so true. A good night's sleep is it will mean so much to you or to you and to your business, Right. Well, so did you go somewhere to learn how to meditate or did you read a book? Or you just decided this is this is what I'm going to do?
00;19;33;19 - 00;20;00;12
Dawn Pascale
Well, you know, I figured what are like, you know, I hate to use this corporate term, I'm sorry, but like, you know, the low hanging fruit. Right. So what's the easiest thing that I can do that Let me just see how let me just see how it goes. Right. So I tried Peloton has really great meditation, you know, sections, podcasts, whatever they're called, you know what I mean?
00;20;00;12 - 00;20;29;07
Dawn Pascale
Segments. But I found what really worked for me is at YouTube, it's a channel called Positive Suggestion. I don't know what it is about the guy's voice, but it literally puts me in la la land. It's fabulous. It's fabulous. You don't see him. All you hear is music. He talks you through however you feel that day. You can do a morning gratitude, you can do a mindfulness, you can do an evening gratitude.
00;20;29;07 - 00;20;49;11
Dawn Pascale
You can do law of attraction. You can, you know, say positive affirmations like there's so many different and you just I just scroll in whichever one go, okay, that appeals to me. And before I get ready in the morning and after, of course, I've made my bed, I lie back on the bed and make my bed every day.
00;20;49;18 - 00;20;49;28
Djenaba
You do?
00;20;49;28 - 00;21;18;11
Dawn Pascale
Of course I do. And I lie back on the bed and I go through it and, you know, and that's it. And it just makes me feel good. I feel I feel centered and I feel like I could I could start my day. If I start to get cuckoo throughout the day. I do some deep belly breathing and I sort of try to relax myself and, you know, not kind of get swept up by the whole hormonal whatever, you know, I won't go down that road.
00;21;19;07 - 00;21;20;00
Dawn Pascale
That's that, you.
00;21;20;02 - 00;21;21;10
Djenaba
Know, talk to me about your personal summer.
00;21;21;18 - 00;21;27;14
Dawn Pascale
Me That's exactly right. Yes, it is. Yes. That's another podcast.
00;21;27;14 - 00;21;28;17
Djenaba
Totally. Another. Yeah, we'll.
00;21;28;17 - 00;21;29;07
Dawn Pascale
Talk about that.
00;21;29;15 - 00;21;35;07
Djenaba
So any other things that you're doing for yourself? That's kind of what we would term self-care that we're going to help you.
00;21;35;24 - 00;21;35;28
Dawn Pascale
Through.
00;21;35;28 - 00;21;36;10
Djenaba
The day.
00;21;36;10 - 00;22;01;00
Dawn Pascale
Yeah. So I take I go for a walk, right? It's starting, you know, I guess it's finally starting to be nicer weather out, right? So you know, really easy after dinner, even if again, if it's a ten minute walk, you know, trying to get back to some sort of exercise routine and stretching. So I go to the chiropractor every two weeks and it's not he's not a chiropractor.
00;22;01;00 - 00;22;26;22
Dawn Pascale
Crack, crack, snap your neck. He's a body movement guy and he's really wonderful. His name is Dr. Harness and Edgewater. Nabi Movement is the name of his practice. And I'm sure, yeah, there's a little snapping and popping, you know, when it's necessary. But but I've worked that into my you know, into my my routine. And, yeah, you know, I I'm seeing a nutritionist now.
00;22;26;22 - 00;22;40;21
Dawn Pascale
I'm on a gazillion supplements. You know, I feel better. Like, I really I it's really crazy when you think about I did nothing for eight years. Yeah. Did nothing.
00;22;40;27 - 00;22;48;21
Djenaba
Yeah. So you've taken some time to take care of yourself. You kind of figure out what works and what doesn't work for you. So what's next for the business? Yeah.
00;22;49;01 - 00;23;15;11
Dawn Pascale
So the focus now is the butter, right? And I have always said, you know, no pun intended, that it was the bread and butter of the, you know, of the business. And so my focus is, you know, continuing to grow the wholesale side of it. And also, you know, try to maybe get to doing, you know, B2B and B2C, you know, with the with the packaged product itself.
00;23;15;20 - 00;23;23;04
Djenaba
So you have given up your retail space in your production kitchen. So how are you how is better being produced right now? So great.
00;23;23;05 - 00;23;47;16
Dawn Pascale
Plan. So crazily enough, when when I was winding myself down right mentally from being in the space, a friend of mine was looking to open up a second location and he had a vegan restaurant and and I convinced him to take over the space, which worked out beautifully because I also kept the integrity of what the space was.
00;23;47;16 - 00;24;08;03
Dawn Pascale
Right? It was a German butcher and it was a blimp and it was a halal meat market. And there was so much meat and death in there, you know, for decades. And I did such a really, I think, a really great job in sort of cleaning out all that bad juju, you know. So it's still a vegan. It's still a vegan place now.
00;24;08;03 - 00;24;23;02
Dawn Pascale
So I rent from him and I actually have one employee and he goes in and then, you know, the early morning hours before the place even opens and, and I still produce my product from there. You know, that's the current situation, right? I'm also working on some other things.
00;24;23;02 - 00;24;28;07
Djenaba
Okay. Yeah. So did you want to talk about a little bit about what your what your plans are and what your goals are for the.
00;24;28;12 - 00;24;39;05
Dawn Pascale
Yeah. So the business so the goal is, is to sell the butter to everybody, plain and simple. There should be no reason why it's not a national product.
00;24;39;10 - 00;24;42;02
Djenaba
So. So right now you're looking towards co packing is it.
00;24;42;02 - 00;25;02;07
Dawn Pascale
Yes. Yeah. Yeah. So I mean I'm in conversations and talks with that with folks to produce it for me and it's so multilevel, you know, You know, there's the bulk size, there's a retail pack size, you know, can everybody do it at the same place, You know, do they make it and then send it to somebody else who does packaging?
00;25;02;07 - 00;25;32;00
Dawn Pascale
Like there's so many different dimensions of it. How do we get it to the customers? You know, do I go through a distributor, you know, So I don't want to do all of those other things yet. I think that I can continue to grow my house accounts and self distribute again to my same concept initially until the seams are about to bust and I have no choice but to then go to that next level, you know, because, you know, to pay a distributor now right out of the gate, you know, it's it's a lot, right?
00;25;32;07 - 00;25;32;14
Dawn Pascale
It's a.
00;25;32;14 - 00;25;52;17
Djenaba
Lot. Right, right, right. So that's that's great. That's amazing. So I personally like the focus on the butter, but I think it's a wonderful product. But also I found just with, you know, working it with Hudson Kitchen and Hudson Kitchen members like the focus on this, one thing that people are making right has made all the difference in help to kind of like help them propel and scale the business faster.
00;25;52;18 - 00;26;17;16
Dawn Pascale
Yeah, I think one day I might have a retail place again. You know, I think one day I probably will have a baked goods line, you know, back again. You know, I started doing little pop ups at my my sister's store in Hoboken, and it feels really good to bake. You know, I miss that. You know, it's I personally miss that piece of it, you know, because to me, it's quiet time and it's enjoyable.
00;26;18;11 - 00;26;29;22
Dawn Pascale
So I think that all of that stuff will come back at some point. But, you know, not not today and not in the current environment of, you know, the economic state.
00;26;29;22 - 00;26;29;29
Djenaba
Right.
00;26;30;03 - 00;26;36;21
Dawn Pascale
It's just it's just too much, you know. But yes, so my focus is the one thing on the butter and I'm excited about it, too.
00;26;36;23 - 00;26;54;19
Djenaba
Fantastic. Me, too. Can't wait. Thank you. Thank you. So at Hudson Kitchen, we have what we call a money bell. And our members ring it when they want to celebrate something. It could be anything from. I took on a new retail partner to to one of their employees getting their paycheck, whatever it is. You know, we're excited and we're celebrating.
00;26;54;19 - 00;26;56;20
Djenaba
So tell me, what are you celebrating right now?
00;26;57;19 - 00;27;20;20
Dawn Pascale
So if I had to ring the virtual bell, I would say I'm celebrating bringing myself to a better place. And if I can, you know, bring myself to the place that I want to bring myself to. And that's no pressure behind it to do that, then I know that my business will be in an even better place as well.
00;27;20;21 - 00;27;29;21
Dawn Pascale
You know, again, back to that, that concept, if I'm doing well, then everything and everyone around me will be better, hopefully better.
00;27;30;12 - 00;27;40;10
Djenaba
Because of it. I do. I believe that's true and I think that's fantastic. And I think it took those years to get there. Like you needed to learn that lesson. Yes, I'm in the process of learning that lesson right now.
00;27;40;15 - 00;27;51;27
Dawn Pascale
Yeah, it's a tough one. Yeah, it's it's sometimes a really tough lesson to you know it, right? You just have to allow yourself to go through it. Yeah, that'll be another guess.
00;27;53;07 - 00;27;57;20
Djenaba
Do you have any party pieces of advice for our listeners?
00;27;57;20 - 00;28;28;24
Dawn Pascale
Yeah, well, I guess I would have to say so. It's kind of like twofold, right? One, don't give up on the dream, okay? And do whatever it takes to get yourself there with the big. But don't ignore yourself in the process. Right. Again, you need there. There needs to always be a balance. So as long as you are doing it from a good and healthy place, then everything else that you're trying to grow will be good and healthy as well.
00;28;29;10 - 00;28;36;28
Djenaba
That sounds great. Thank you. Good parting words. So tell our listeners where they can find you. And all about all about home sweet home.
00;28;36;28 - 00;28;59;20
Dawn Pascale
So the website is oh m hyphen sweet home dot com and you know or follow me on Instagram or Facebook. My handle is home sweet home and J and you know stay tuned for pop ups and such. And you know if somebody is interested in wholesaling butter, if you visit our website, click on the wholesale tab, fill out the information.
00;28;59;21 - 00;29;00;15
Dawn Pascale
We'll get back to you.
00;29;00;27 - 00;29;03;12
Djenaba
Sounds great. Don. Thank you so much for being here.
00;29;03;12 - 00;29;04;19
Dawn Pascale
Thank you, gentlemen. Thank you.
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