Product and Life Pivots: Jennifer Field Piette, Narrative Food
I first met Jennifer Field Piette at a dinner she hosted for We The Change, a group of female B Corp owners. Somehow I was lucky enough to be included, along with a few other men, and I was treated to a fantastic meal and further reinforcement – as if its needed – of how smart and dynamic the women of the B Corp movement are.
Jennifer is founder and CEO of Narrative Food, which sells gift boxes of delicious foods crafted by small-scale makers. The women-owned venture has a mission is to support artisan food makers, uplift local food systems, and support nonprofits. Narrative Food walks the walk; it’s a B Corp, a member of 1% for the Planet, and Climate Neutral Certified. It also donates 2% of its sales to nonprofits.
Since first meeting Jennifer, I’ve been amazed by her resilience when the tectonic plates of the market shifted seismically both during, and after, the pandemic.
Describe the “aha” moment when you decided to geographically pivot your business (and life) by moving from Los Angeles to Maine.
The “Aha” moment has been decades in the making, hugely inspired by Voltaire’s “il faut cultiver notre jardin,” (we must cultivate our garden) – in the face of great upheaval. This can be understood in any number of ways, but to me, it speaks to my interest in soil health, local communities, gardening/farming, becoming a steward of the land, and cooking/convening around the table.
For decades, I have been on the lookout for a place to “cultivate my garden,” from Portugal to France, Malibu, Taos, and beyond, never having taken the leap.
Once I realized, post-pandemic, that my SoCal-based home delivery model was no longer viable, I was free to leave the area, and one fine day we saw a listing on Deer Isle, an island off the coast of Maine, showing a tumbling down farmhouse with a barn, a blueberry field buried in knee high grasses, and a few acres of overgrown forest – that culminated in a purchase. Never having visited Deer Isle before (only knowing of it as one of my mother’s favorite places – she lives in Maine), and only having seen the house on a wintery video call, this decision was quite the leap of faith. But here we are, nearly 2 years later, and happily planting roots in our new community. The farmhouse renovations are ongoing, and the garden is a fascinating experiment! If you are interested in reading more about these adventures I have been posting about them in my Substack, “The Maine Chronicles.”
You also made a business pivot that’s as radical as your cross-country move; you overhauled your product line from farm-to-table, home delivery of local, small-batch foods into corporate gifting. Why the change in strategy?
The business pivot came about post pandemic: After building the farm-to-table home delivery model in SoCal for over a decade (we started in 2010), we found ourselves entirely inundated with orders during the pandemic. Through pure force of will, and because of the desperate community need for healthy home-delivered food – not to mention the added pressure to support growers and makers whose other sales outlets had shut down – we found ourselves in a unique situation: The business quadrupled within a period of 2-3 weeks at the onset of the pandemic – and then there was an article about us in the NYT, and things really spiraled: I had to stop taking on any new customers. With 500 people on our waiting list, we did everything humanly possible to support our community, including taking on Emergency and Disaster Loans to help us meet the demand, and keep everyone safe.
So, if I’m reading between the lines, your business, like many, got hit with a slowdown post-pandemic, yes?
We successfully stabilized over the following months. Unfortunately, when everything opened again and many of our pandemic customers returned to farmers markets and grocery stores, our operating costs had ballooned to a point that nothing was adding up anymore – particularly with the added expense of the Emergency and Disaster loans to repay.
The only way I could salvage the business was surgical: I eliminated the huge running expense of handling fresh food, and leaned into corporate gifting, which had been a sideline I’d enjoyed, personally curating gifts for a major studio head and his wife, for several years, and a handful of other clients.
I got to work pivoting our website and operations while I still had some cashflow to work with. (The critical decision here was to make the pivot while I still had funds to power it - knowing when it was time to stop, no matter how painful.)
What were obstacles or challenges presented by your pivot – and how did you overcome them?
One of the challenges we faced, and continue to face, was pivoting from a direct-to-consumer model into a B2B model. This meant our entire SoCal customer base, built up over more than a decade, was now pretty much history, and we had to start almost from scratch building relationships with corporate clients – from a distant island.
And how is the pivot is going?
The pivot is still an ongoing process, but we were blessed to be awarded a substantial Domestic Trade Grant to develop a new initiative, which we have just launched! This could truly be transformative not just for Narrative Food, but for many of the small-batch food businesses that we buy from – and even the nonprofits that we support. It is designed to provide a reliable source of year-round revenue (and donations). We had a wonderful experience implementing many facets of the grant with the support of several companies I’ve gotten to know through We the Change, the B Corp Network for women-owned B Corps.
You recently added a new product to your corporate gifting, an offering for employers to send subscription “coffee break” boxes to their remote and hybrid employees. How’s that going?
Thanks to our Domestic Trade Grant, the “coffee break in a box” subscriptions just launched a couple weeks ago. It is too early to make sales projections, but we are optimistic that we are tackling an area that will bring value to companies who are looking for ways to support and engage their remote and hybrid employees. We were very excited to have a piece which speaks to this, published recently in Sustainable Brands.
Do you have any advice for others when contemplating a major pivot – whether that’s a life change or a product change?
Ultimately, there is some element of risk-taking when you make a pivot, so if you are risk averse, or prone to anxiety, this could be stressful – and maybe not the right decision for you. So far, across the many re-inventions I’ve had in my life, I have found that when I am passionate about what I’m doing, and I go forth with an open heart and mind, I tend to attract the right energy to move things forward. Keeping an open mind as to how a pivot articulates itself is also important. Sometimes it will lead you somewhere you never expected!
What’s the one thing you miss most about L.A.?
LA is a city that boasts incredible diversity, and I do miss that, living in a rural community here in Maine.
What’s the one thing you love most about Maine?
The seasons! I love having defined, gorgeous seasons to mark the passage of time, particularly given how quickly time passes at our age! Here in Maine, we have an absolutely glorious autumn of fall foliage, cozy snowy winters, the blessing of spring, and a beautiful (if buggy!) summer season which draws a different population to our island.
What’s your biggest stressor in business – and how do you deal with it?
Cash flow and time are my biggest stressors. Things always take longer than you think, and so cash flow can also take longer than you hope! I try to remind myself of that and stay positive – because I have also experienced many instances of “manifesting” – saying out loud, “I just need 30 farm box subscriptions to pay such and such bill”, for example, and then the phone rings from a company wanting to send 30 farm boxes to their employees for the month. This has happened time and time again. This “positivity” strategy is NOT something you can write into a business plan, but I try to balance it with also thinking in a granular way how to solve bottlenecks by breaking them down, step by step, day by day, and remembering that every problem has a solution, my job is to find it.
You’ve been at it for nearly 15 years. What keeps you going?
Pure force of will keeps me going. There have been many moments I have wondered why I bother, but I’m like the Little Engine That Could – or maybe a cat with 9 lives – and somehow I keep landing on my feet…
What are you reading right now?
I’m listening to the Remains of the Day whenever I have a long drive, and otherwise my reading is mostly of musical notes – I am a classical pianist and love to play Ravel, Debussy, Chopin, and more. Because of the limited options on our island, I have even taken on a handful of piano students, which also brings me joy on a whole new level!
When you were a child, what did you want to be when you grew up?
I didn’t really care as long as it was a job where I would travel! And now, after living 25 years abroad in France, Portugal, and the UK, and more than a decade in California, I honestly never want to travel again. I’m very happy enjoying my quiet island life and community, watching the seasons, and cultivating my garden.
Who inspires you?
Yvon Chouinard & Chef José Andrés.
Rock, paper, or scissors – and why?
Paper, because above all I’m a storyteller, and paper is a great platform for recording narratives around people and place!
You can connect with Jennifer on LinkedIn.
Editor’s Note: As someone who’s received a Narrative Food gift box, I can attest that they are imaginative and delicious. If you’d like to learn more about Coffee Break in a Box subscriptions or Narrative Food’s other gift boxes, you can visit their website or get in touch with their team at info@narrativefood.com
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