Samotria “Sam” Holmes was strolling via Lowes Meals 4 years in the past together with her mom, the 2 of them discussing what her future would maintain. Holmes felt as if she have been in limbo. She’d lately left ScanSource after 10 years, having labored her means from a gross sales rep to nationwide gross sales supervisor, and was now working at native a startup whereas she discovered her subsequent transfer.
“I’d labored my whole profession to assist different individuals convey their goals to life,” Holmes stated. “However what about mine?”
Her mom stated, “Properly, what about your caramel sauce?”
It wasn’t precisely the sort of recommendation Holmes was in search of. She’d spent years baking and making sweet and dessert sauce recipes however that was solely a pastime, not a profession.
“Proper as I informed my mother that, I received distracted and I ran my grocery cart right into a shelf, and proper at eye-level I noticed a locally-made caramel from North Carolina,” Holmes stated. “I informed myself, ‘Properly, if there’s room for this right here, then perhaps there’s room for me, too.’”
4 years later, Holmes’ candy cream caramel sauce is on the market in the very same aisle of the Lowes Meals the place she as soon as seemed for solutions.
Holmes Sweet Home, the dessert and sweet firm Holmes based with a concentrate on utilizing solely complete and pure components, started in 2017 as slightly stand on the indoor farmers market inside Brewery 85 on Whitlee Court docket in Greenville. It’s since grow to be a thriving firm with a variety of brittles and sauces obtainable for retail buy at grocery shops together with Lowes Meals and Swamp Rabbit Cafe.
Holmes’ artisanal brittle flavors embrace banana walnut bread, cinnamon sugar pecan, and pineapple cashew, all vegan and gluten free. Dessert sauces embrace chocolate syrup, coconut caramel syrup, quaint butternut sauce, and candy cream caramel sauce.
However that solely encompasses about 20% of Holmes’ enterprise. The majority of the corporate’s income comes from gross sales to greater than 30 companies throughout the nation, from bakeries to espresso outlets to candymakers.
“I work with numerous espresso roasters who can inform you the identify of the farm the place they get their beans, the identify of the roaster, the precise local weather the beans develop in,” Holmes stated. “However then they weren’t capable of inform you what’s in that caramel syrup they use together with that nice espresso, or what’s in that chocolate sauce, and even what share is definitely actual chocolate.”
Her profession in gross sales taught Holmes learn how to inform the story behind her personal product. It’s additionally opened up her eyes to completely different income streams. She remembered the team-building workout routines from her company days that concerned craft cocktail kits. Why not market a product that matches that very same want however is family-friendly and accessible to those that don’t drink alcohol?
Therefore, she created dessert-making kits for brittle, brownies and extra, promoting greater than a thousand kits final vacation season, alone.
“The work I did at ScanSource, I notice now, actually primed the pump for every part I’m doing now,” Holmes stated. “Look, caramel will not be on the highest of thoughts for lots of people, so you must construct these relationships. And seeing individuals’s faces once they attempt the caramel or the brittle for the primary time, it’s so fulfilling. I didn’t notice I’d been searching for that each one this time.”
