Interested in starting your own entrepreneurial journey in food and beverage but unsure what to expect? Then read up on our interview with Nikki Webster, owner of Forest + Field Bakery, located in Joplin, MO, USA.

What's your business, and who are your customers?

We are a naturally leavened, sourdough European-style bakery. Many of our customer base have traveled or lived abroad and experienced European breads and pastries and have found a reconnection to those places through our bakery. We pride ourselves not only on using in-season, organic, and Non-GMO ingredients but old-world European bread and pastry making techniques of “sourdough” - the use of fermented flour and water (starter) in place of commercial yeast and long fermentation periods that make our products clean of unnatural ingredients, more easily digestible and beneficial, thus reaching a large group of people with gluten sensitivities who are able to eat our breads and pastries with no negative effects.

Tell us about yourself

I began making sourdough bread out of my kitchen in the middle of my Huston the Middle East deployment. Making sourdough was simply the next goal on my list of self-sufficiency and stewardship skills, but when I began sharing with friends, I was encouraged by many of them to share on a larger scale. Through this process, I reconnected with a part of my being that had, for most of my years, become shrouded, if not lost, in the duties of military wife and mother to four. I remembered the little girl I used to be that would get lost in the kitchen of creation and now had become a woman seeking to find solace in really good, authentic food. So, the two met in the middle and was completed by taking my fondness for creation and enjoyment to eat through inviting others to my table (both of kitchen and lifestyle, if you will), ultimately giving me a place to share my passion for countercultural, slow and simple living and loving people in the language of food.

What's your biggest accomplishment as a business owner?

The fact that we not only have been able to continue to exist but thrive and are only open on Saturdays has to be the most obvious “accomplishment” for us from a business standpoint. However, what always has and will be most striking to me is that we continue to average around 30% new customers every Saturday. Including the days which I baked and sold out of my home, there has never been a time we have not had a first-time customer. This speaks to the incredible community of Joplin and the power of word of mouth.

What's one of the hardest things that come with being a business owner?

Most people have no box for all the many and constant details that must be managed behind the scenes of running a small business. At the end of the day, I just want to create food and eat it. Sometimes, all the nitty-gritty business stuff threatens to rob me of the joy of what I was called to, that is, to help cultivate authentic community through authentic food for people, not to make money. Alas, the two are tethered. This can be very burdensome for me at times.

What are the top tips you'd give to anyone looking to start, run and grow a business today?

First, you must have a why that had nothing to do with the profit it does or has the potential to generate. Secondly, to serve others is the greatest calling and profession there is, but in our culture, there exists a forgetfulness of what it means to serve truly. Your product must meet a need. This, you must be able to connect through a story to your audience. And as much as your story is yours and has birthed your product, you must never forget that your business will be most successful if it remains true to being about and for your customers. Lastly, and I’m most passionate about this: your business does not have to follow the model of American workism. Find the rhythm that works for you (and in particular your family and the family culture you wish to create!) so that you do not become a slave to producing your product or making money. This, in turn, will encourage others to chase things that are truly life-giving and not what depletes us.

Is there anything else you'd like to share?

Owning a bakery was never a “dream” of mine. But there has always been something inside me that wanted to reach people in a way that would impact and encourage them like nothing else. I would never have thought that would have been a most simple and old thing as bread.

Where can people find you and your business?

Website: https://forestandfieldbakery.com/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/forestandfieldbakery/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/forestandfieldbakery/

If you like what you've read here and have your own story as a solopreneur that you'd like to share, then email community@subkit.com; we'd love to feature your journey on these pages.

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