The Big 10: Cooking up a brand

If you’ve turned on the TV lately, you may have noticed our country has become a little bit obsessed with food. Not only is there an entire cable network devoted to it, but network TV is in on the action, too. Eating is universal and social, and social media spurred the rise of online foodie culture. A quick Google search will find hundreds of blogs dissecting the preparation and eventual consumption of a meal (after the glamor shots are posted to Instagram, Twitter and Pinterest, of course). Kathy Judge, who handles marketing for Schmidt Bros. Inc., noticed the phenomenon and saw an opportunity.

Swanton, Ohio-based Schmidt Bros. is a family business that began in 1937 as a grain, vegetable and livestock. The family built its first greenhouse in 1951, and now has 14 acres under glass on a 700 acre farm. Its main customers are independent garden centers, farm markets, and wholesale growers. The increase in popularity of urban edibles led Judge to believe that the people who shop at IGCs are probably watching those shows and thinking, “I want to do that. How cool would it be to cook that meal with herbs growing in my kitchen?”

So in 2005, Schmidt Bros. launched the Homegrown Gourmet brand to hop onto the edibles trend before it really took off. Sales have continually grown, and Judge has made several tweaks based on customer feedback, like adding new heirloom varieties and All-American Selections.

“People have been asking us about the ghost pepper for years, and we finally decided to add it a few years ago,” she says. “We heard that demand. I don’t know who’ll eat that, but we added it to our product line.”

Schmidt Bros. sells the Homegrown Gourmet line as finished product in 3.5-inch square pots. It also offers them to growers as a plug program, but for now the bulk of the Homegrown Gourmet business is done through IGCs. In 2013, the brand added a 6-inch pot that is more decorative, so it can be set on a kitchen counter.

“We do select herbs in (the 6-inch pot) that would be common for cooking,” Judge says. “The home chef could say, ‘let’s add some fresh rosemary.’”

Although Homegrown Gourmet offers 130 varieties, the 6-inch pots are currently limited to the more common herbs you would use in cooking: rosemary, parsley, basil — the standards. The trick was to find a pot that wouldn’t look out of place in someone’s kitchen. Judge found a neutral decorative pot, not too fancy, but attractive enough that it could sit on a kitchen counter.

“I’d seen the popularity of the Food Network shows and other cooking shows, and thought, ‘So many people have a garden, but they think it’s too far to go to get the herbs and vegetables,” Judge says. “If it’s right there in the kitchen, they might be more apt to use it.’”

Another new addition is the Savory Ensembles, a 3-herb, combination plant in a 12-inch oval pot. The tags for the Savory Ensembles include a recipe on them instead of a picture of the plant and growing information. They have a recipe or how to use that particular herb or combination of herbs in a recipe.