How I Built This with Guy Raz - Live Episode! Jeni's Splendid Ice Creams: Jeni Britton Bauer

Episode Date: February 28, 2018

Even as a kid, Jeni Britton Bauer knew she was going to start a business one day. But she had no idea that her love for perfume would inspire her to start experimenting with ice cream. After years of hustling, she eventually launched Jeni's Splendid Ice Creams, a company that now has more than 30 stores nationally and touts unique flavors like Brambleberry Crisp and Lemon Buttermilk. Recorded live in Columbus, Ohio. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

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walking distance from so much of the city, made it feel less like a visit and more like we were actually living there. Plus, taking a trip is the perfect time to host your space on Airbnb. Your place with all of its personal touches and its amazing location could make someone else's vacation even better. Your home might be worth more than you think. Find out how much at Airbnb.ca.com slash host. It was the call that none of us could have imagined ever wanted to get a pint of ice cream in Lincoln, Nebraska, tested positive for Listeria. So we decided that we were going to recall everything, which meant, that 265 tons of ice cream that had been out in the world came back to us, and there we were. Did you think there was a possibility that you would shut down, that your business could basically end?

I think at that point we realized that that was it. And it was weird because I kept a journal at the time and I was like, I don't even have any ideas. From NPR, it's How I Build This, a show about innovators, entrepreneurs, idealists, and the stories behind the movements they built. I'm Guy Raz, and on today's special live episode, how a college dropout from Columbus mixed hot pepper oil into chocolate ice cream, and from that built Jenys, a growing ice cream empire with more than 30 stores across America.

So, interesting little fact about the Columbus, Ohio area. It's actually one of the major food incubators in America. Wendy's started there, so did Bob Evans. Buffalo Wild Wings, Max, and Irma's. Yes, in Columbus. And one of the theories about why that is is because for a long time, the population of Columbus was a pretty good proxy for the general population of the United States. So if people in Columbus liked it, there was a good chance that the rest of America would too. So if you know this, it kind of makes sense that ice cream flavors like juniper and lemon curd or osmanthus and blackberry crackle, whatever that is,

have also come out of Columbus, because that is the city where Jenny Britton Bauer invents and then tests all of her weird and wonderful ice cream flavors. And it's an ice cream brand that could only have come from the mind of a perfume maker, which, as you will hear, was almost what Jenny became. I recently went to Columbus to meet Jenny, and we chatted. And we chatted in front of a live audience that, to be honest, it kind of felt like they all knew Jenny Persol. All right. It feels a little bit like your bat mitzvah,

because everyone here knows you. I know every single one of you, I know that. I already know that. Yeah. So, all right, let's start at the very beginning. You moved around a lot as a kid. So first of all, what did your parents do that meant that you guys moved around a lot?

I don't know. They got bored. Okay. My mom's in the audience. We could ask her. We moved a lot. We moved to a, and it wasn't very far, but we would move to a new school. So from the time I can remember, I mean, we went to new school almost every year, every couple of years. Wow. And I don't know. It didn't bother me. But even in Peoria, Illinois, where I started out, we went to several schools there, and I moved here when I was 12.

What do you remember about? Do you remember feeling unsettled? Do you remember feeling that, you know, you didn't have stability as a kid? No, I don't feel. I didn't feel that. And the funny thing is I'm a parent now and I wouldn't do that to my kids. Yeah. I mean, I was also very shy and fairly introverted.

You know, you'd think that that would be horrible to have to go start in a new school and find new friends every year or two. But I don't really remember it being that way. In fact, when I moved to Dublin, Ohio, I moved from this small town called Dunlap, Illinois, and I think the population was like 500. In 1985, I went to orientation in summer before school started, and there were 40 other kids there, and I was like, that's so cool that the whole grade came out to like, you know, just to greet me and say welcome to Dublin.

But it turns out it was just the new kids for seventh grade in Dublin, Ohio. Dublin was going through a big boom then. And you say you were introverted as a kid. How do you think someone would have described you? Is that how like a grown-up would have described you? Like, oh, Jenny, she's really quiet. Or would they have said, Jenny, she's going to make it one day. No, they would have said, so kind and patient and quiet, rule, follower, all the things that I'm not.

Really? It's not that I'm not kind. Yeah. I do, that is one of, I do value kindness, of course. And so I have read that, like, even as a kid, you were, like, already hustling. Like, you were selling plastic straws filled with powdered Kool-Aid and sugar and selling them as pixie sticks. Is that true? Yeah, one of my very successful businesses back then.

I mean, we would make $10. By the end of school, we could go get pizza for the whole group. Wow. I had, like, other people selling them. I'd make them at night, and then I had three other people selling them, too. And we were selling them all over the school. I went to a big school then. And did you go to high school here in Columbus?

I did. I went my last couple of years at Upper Arlington High School. And so you must have been, okay, I'm pretty good, because you got into Ohio State University, right? So by the time I got to Upper Arlington, I was very good at figuring out how exactly to get Strasies. Like, I knew exactly what I had to do, because I always failed math, which was fine. I threw it out. I just didn't even bother.

Because then I would go to summer school, and I could get an A. And they would merge the two grades together. And that made me very happy, because then I could work and do other things in the evening, and that was great. So how did you get into college? Okay, what the other thing is,

they were, you know, pretty sure that I wasn't going to get into college, the guidance counselors, because I also refused to take the SAT. I really thought that was horrible. I still think that's horrible. My mom thinks that's horrible. It's horrible.

You can't judge people by that kind of stuff. It's just not right. So they wanted me to do it. But you know what? That takes six weeks in a class that costs $350. And I had other things to do. So we're getting to Ohio State. So, of course, I applied to Ohio State.

And they said, no thanks. But I wrote him a letter. I was just like, well, okay, I know you. Like, I get it. But here's what I was doing while I was not getting good grades. And the next thing I knew, I got a letter in that said,

I was accepted to Ohio State. Fall quarter. All right. So you get to Ohio State and you... The Ohio State. You get to the Ohio State. And you decide to study art history. So, yeah, I mean, art history kind of found me.

I started in art because I'd always done art because my grandmother was an artist. My mom was very into art. I always hanging out in the art department at school. And then I was blown away by art history. like not off my feet because it was like a real, like emotional look at what really happened versus history being what other people decided history would be. I would go to art history classes and my brain felt like it was on a treadmill.

I would leave out of breath. I guess it was why you were a student that you started getting into like making your own perfumes. I did. It was a creative time for me. I was trying to figure out what I was going to become. Also, true, that when you study art and art history, mostly, everybody in your life wants to know what you're really going to do. So you get bombarded with that question, which isn't fair, but, you know. So I was working at a pastry shop, and I was thinking about maybe quitting school and going to pastry school.

I knew I would have a business one day. I knew I knew that. You already knew that when you were a student, yeah. I mean, I knew that that was where I was headed. And then I got into perfuming. I had a friend who worked in the chemistry department, who was a grad student in a chemistry who would bring me little vials of scent. Chemicals that had scent, so like a spearmint or one that kind of smelled like

tarragon or whatever. So then I got really into scent because I'm really like, I'm really into that. And I was good at scent and I knew scent from my childhood. So that got me really into perfume. I think I should be a perfumer. And at the time, that didn't for me mean, so I should probably send it for some chemistry classes. That wasn't what it meant for me.

What it meant for me was I need to go to the travel agency and see if I can get a one-way ticket to Gros France. Perfect. And hustle and figure out somebody to help me. And then I'll learn all that stuff. And, you know, I'll become a nose. And that'll be great. I'll come back to America and it'll be great.

So you go to the travel agency and you get a ticket to Gras in France, right? And? No, I didn't do that. Okay. I didn't do that. I didn't do that. So I'm doing that.

So that's where, okay, so that's where I was. That was your plan? I'm gathering essential oils in my house and I'm building them and. And were you wearing them? I mean, yeah. Yeah, I was wearing them. I was selling them. I was giving them away.

And I did that for a couple of years. I read a few books on it. And then I had this one essential oil that was the oil of cayenne that doesn't have a scent at all. It just has physical heat on your tongue. So I would sometimes use that to cook with and some of the other essential oils too. I would throw them in pasta or whatever, like basil and whatever. But I had this essential oil of cayenne. And I was trying to hear something to do with.

And it occurred to me that maybe I could mush it into some chocolate ice cream. Like from your freezer? Well, I went and bought some. I didn't have any. I thought it was a really good idea. I was going to mix cayenne oil into my chocolate ice cream. So I was going to make a spicy, frozen chocolate. And so I did that, and it was incredible. So I took a bite, and it was cold, and I tasted the sugar,

and then the chocolate, and, like, a few seconds later, the heat. And it was the first time I ever had, you know, ice cream that was hot, and it was, like, this whole thing. And I thought it was, like, just amazing. So immediately I made a rose petal ice cream with vanilla and started to think like ice cream is the perfect carrier of scent and of these oils, right? So I started like quickly making different sort of edible perfume in a way

through ice cream. You were buying like pints of haggendaz or whatever and just mashing it in and experimenting. Yep. And at what point did you say, hey, wait, maybe I'm trying to make my own ice cream and do this? Oh, maybe two weeks later. Wow.

So this is like, this is probably like 90... He's mashing it in. It's probably like 1994 or 95 or something like that. And did you know how to make ice cream? I mean, you worked at a bakery, so you had some skills, but did you know how to start, where to start? I did not.

I had the Cuisine Art canister ice cream machine that you have on. I mean, I bought it for this project. I hadn't really liked ice cream that much as a... And I should put that into some contest because I like all desserts, so ice cream was just on the bottom, right before cookies, all cookies. I liked ice cream, I just didn't love ice cream. And how long before you were making decent ice cream?

Because I have to assume, like, some of that ice cream probably just sucked. Well, now I would say it all was horrible. Okay, I had sure. But at the time, I was thinking it was getting pretty good. So first of all, when I put the essential oils into the ice creams, like, I knew in that moment, I had one of those moments that you read about where like the sky opened up and I knew that I was going to make ice cream

for the rest of my life. And I think that the reason it happened is because I had been studying all the things that interested me and this is exactly where they all converge. I understood that butterfat melted below body temperature because I was working with other fats that perfumers often use fats that are solid at room temperature but melt immediately on contact with your skin.

And so I knew that butterfat was that kind of a fat and that ice cream was a perfect carrier of scent. I knew that scent could tell stories because I've been thinking about that from an art perspective and then I knew a little bit about pastry because I've been working in the pastry shop in the pastry kitchen and thinking about that.

So those things kind of crossed over in ice cream. And I didn't know what I needed to do. I thought I knew what I needed to do and I needed to quit school and go do it. I guess it was around 1996 when you did that. You actually dropped out of the Ohio State University to do a... an ice cream stall, which is kind of crazy.

What was like the mental leap that you took to say, all right, you know what, I'm going to drop out and start an ice cream stall. Well, it was actually really easy because I was in a figure drawing class and there are three hours. And I don't know why that's funny, but I was in a figure drawing class, there are three hours. And a model walked in that I always had trouble drawing. And she's like tall and beautiful and very angular.

And so I had, and I couldn't get good work when I would draw her. And so I was like, I was just deflated, and I sat there and I just wanted to go home and make ice cream. So I did. I just got up and left. I left all, it was portfolio week. I left all of my art there that I had done. I left all of my supplies there, which those are expensive. If you know anybody who's an artist or studies art, those are expensive. You work hard to get those supplies. So I knew I wasn't going back. I mean, at that point did you, I mean, presumably you got good enough at ice cream making. how did you, what was your next step? Like, how did you even have the money to open up a shop to make a business?

Well, it was like you had a friend, and so she and I were messing around with this together, and she was able to get all of it from her parents. So that was kind of great. So we, so that was actually the easy part for that one. And I started stalking the North Market. We started going to the North Market. The market is an indoor public market in Columbus. And you went to them and said, hey, I want to get a contract with you to have a stall?

Yeah, I thought it would be pretty easy because the market had just moved into a brand new, old warehouse, but a much bigger space than what it had been in. It had been in a Kwanza hut for many years. So we started going there, and, you know, they were just not into it. They were just not into it at all. They were very, they wanted the market to be a grocery destination in Columbus. And ice cream just didn't fit at all with that vision that they had for the market at all. So we just kept going back, and they just kept saying no. Really?

And it was, there was a show on PBS, this is the turning point. There was a show on PBS about ice cream. They had another one about sandwiches. They had a couple of different shows they put out, and they were really good. And on the ice cream show, they showcased a company called Bassett's at the Redding Terminal Market in Philadelphia. And it's a heritage, amazing ice cream company, and they started right there in the market, and they still have a thriving business in the market. And I had to call my grandfather to have him record this on the VCR in Florida,

because apparently I didn't know anybody with VCR. I don't know, but that was what I did. Anyway, he recorded it and sent it to us, and that was how we got in the market, because they watched that and realized that an ice cream company can be a part of a thriving market. So you go to the North Market in Columbus, and what you set up a stand,

and you guys call it scream ice cream. Scream ice cream. Pretty good name. And so... And by the way, was it already, were you already doing

sort of weird and unusual flavors or was it just like chocolate, vanilla, strawberry? Like, what were your first few flavors? Salty caramel was one of the first ones of wildberry lavender. A lot of the flavors that we do now, of course, the hot chocolate one.

And then I started using ingredients from the market to scent and flavor the ice cream. So we would have, so I'd buy basil or some herb from the farmer outside and then use that steep in the cream. And cream would absorb all of that scent and then you lock it in there when it's frozen and then it would sort of unfurl on your palate. And just out of curiosity, if we went back in time 20 years

and tried that ice cream, would it taste exactly like it tastes today? No. It wouldn't. It would, it was, some of the flavors would be similar. Salty caramel was similar. but it was in the body and texture of the ice cream that I wasn't able to get right. So what do people make of you guys at this stall? Because you were super young and kind of like alternative.

Yeah, I mean I had pink hair most of the time and I wore goofy outfits and a lot of vintage stuff. And I thought it was cool. I thought it was like the artist making ice cream. And it's funny looking back on that too because I'm like, I never even like I never got to the artist part. like I was studying art. You know, I mean, I never even did that, you know.

But I just thought that was cool. That's like a cool business. You, you know, do something different every day. And people will come in and be just so excited to see what you're doing that day. Yeah. And it took me a long time to realize that it was like not how we, that's not like what a business is. It's not how even I approach businesses, you know. Did, I mean, did you get lots of great feedback?

I mean, was it a lot of buzz around? There was definitely not a lot of buzz around it. Maybe a little bit in the beginning. You know, some people in the market, you know, would come by and they liked our ice creams. But, you know, we had $9 days. I think the worst day I ever had was a $3 day. Wow. That might have been, yeah, I mean, one ice cream cone.

Yep, we barely got by. But we did. I made $638 a month for the entire time we were open. I mean, I took that home to live off of for those three, four years. I mean, do you think, I mean, it must have been a grind, right? Because you're selling ice cream all day and you're making it all night there in that stall. I was making it all day, selling it all day. And it was great.

I mean, it was great for a long time. It was really great. I would wander the market, talk to merchants. I got to learn about everything that they do. I learned from the cheese guy all about cheese, from the wine guy all about wine. I had a lot of time. You know, the market's only busy when it's busy and then it's not busy. So I learned a lot.

everything I know about food. I learned everything I know about business and people and all of that from the market from those days. And I would make ice cream and sell it over the counter and learn how people reacted to it. Did it feel to you like you were flailing or did it feel to you like, you know, it was kind of working? Of the first few years, it felt like it was about to work. And then it started to feel like we were flailing. Yeah. And then it started to feel like, you know, I don't know that this is ever going to work. I don't know that my business partner is going to be really into this. She really wasn't. She was kind of gone the whole time. She wasn't there. You know, and I don't know that I have it in me to do this forever. Like, it was a lot. It was a lot

of work. I guess around this time, it's like between 2000, 2002, you decided to take an ice cream course at Penn State, which is a famous course, Ben and Jerry's. That's how they learned how to make ice cream. They did it via correspondence. Well, I took that right before we closed Scream, which doesn't make a whole lot of sense. You guys shut Scream down. The same month. I went to the Penn State Ice Cream School. I mean, you've been making ice cream for four years, so why did you feel like you needed to take that ice cream course? I felt like I wanted to know how everybody else does it. That's where I got a lot of it. I mean, because I'd been doing it for four years, when I went to Penn State, it was like all of these, this intuition that I had was suddenly knowledge that I now knew,

right? It was not just intuition. I now had that. And so it was like, yes, yes. It was like, I got it, you know. And it was wonderful, too, because, you know, ice cream is all math. It's math and chemistry and science. And that is just not at all what I did when I was younger. And so that was really cool being in that environment and seeing these people putting these things together and to see ice cream in the lab.

And this was really cool. I was really into it. What did your friends say to you? What did your mom say to you? Was she like, you know, maybe you should, you know, try something else? And were the people who were saying, you know, this was fun and great. but maybe she gets something a bit more stable. Yeah, that's pretty much what everybody said.

Yeah. Yeah, that's exactly what everybody said. In a minute, how Jenny decided to completely ignore everyone's advice and then resurrect her ice cream company. I'm Guy Raz, and you're listening to How I Built This from NPR. Hey, welcome back to this special live edition of How I Built This from NPR. I'm Guy Raz. Okay, so it's the year 2000, screened.

Ice Cream ice cream is no more at the North Market. Jenny's out of work, but still, she can't accept the idea of totally abandoning ice cream. It felt like a really long time for me, but it was probably six months before I started writing another plan to get back in ice cream. And what was it? Was it just people saying, when are you going to get back to doing it? One of the things that really struck me when I was in that in between time, when I was really sort of in limbo of what I was going to do. it was a moment that I, on a Saturday, I'd saved, like, I mean, I had like $5 and I had a Vogue magazine.

I was going to a coffee shop. And I was really excited to get their orange scone. And, like, that was going to be my whole Saturday. And I went in there and I stood in the long line and I got up to the front and I was like, and I'll have the orange scone and a coffee. And they're like, oh, we're out of the scone. And I was like, what? They didn't care.

And I just kind of backed away from line. I remember this so perfectly. Backed away from the line. And like the line is still there. And all these people are still excited or whatever. And I wasn't anymore. And I turned around. I walked out with nothing to do.

But when I walked through the door, it like hit me. Like that is exactly what I was doing to all of my customers at Scream. Because at Scream, I would only have whatever I wanted to make every day. And so, yeah, I knew that like everyone loved salty caramel, but like I can't make it every day. And so once I realized that the thing that draws me back to a business, every single time, no matter what the business is,

is the thing that I had last time. I was there. I might change my mind when I get there, but it's always the thing I had last time that I loved. That changed everything for me. And once I sort of got that, I think everything in my life started to change. I mean, I think I started writing a business plan.

I immediately just knew what we had to do. You know, like, and then it started to kind of snap into place. Like all the mistakes that I had made at Scream were really coming into focus. You needed money to start this business? and you needed a location. So how did you deal with that? Of course, I was hoping we'd get back in the North Market

because it would be difficult to imagine my company if the market didn't exist. I mean, you can start up there fairly inexpensively, $30,000, $40,000. And you've got two million people walking through every year. Like Pike's Place in Seattle or Reading Terminal in Philadelphia. That is how important. North Market is in Columbus?

Yeah, yeah. And it's in the middle of the city and everybody goes there and all the highways lead to the North Market. So I was hoping to get back into the market. And so I got a job at the market and started hanging out in the market all the time. Start talking to everybody at the market,

getting to know all the management, and just trying to change, you know, just to change the way they were thinking about me. Because they thought of you as, I guess, somebody who tried and failed. Like a punky kid, you know, who had this artsy ice cream that maybe wasn't an entrepreneur, a real business person or whatever. So when you went back to them and you said, hey, I want to open up an ice cream shop,

were they like, yes, come back. Oh, no, not at all. No. No. What'd they say? Yeah, no. We're not doing that again. It was a lot of knows.

And for how long? I don't know, but at least a year, I would think. Yeah. Wow. So how did you convince them? How did you get the market to accept? your new iteration of an ice cream store. Well, I started making ice cream.

And, you know, taking it to the market, at that point, Charlie had gotten me this machine. Charlie was your boyfriend at the time, now your husband. And he's not my husband. Yes. And Charlie bought me this machine that I couldn't afford. It was like a $1,200 Italian gelada machine. And I was trying to save for it because I had these friends who I wanted to invest in the company. And they were like the only people I knew with money.

and I was their babysitter and so I but they were great they were just wonderful and I was very close to them and so I had told them all about the ice cream and whatever and I wanted to get them ice cream so that they could give me money

and I couldn't get this machine I couldn't save up for it and they were going to move to Toronto back to Toronto and so it became urgent that I get this machine so that I can show them what I'm doing so I can get the $40,000 from them and I went home one day and Charlie had bought it for me. And so, then I'm back in business. I start making ice cream, like as much as I possibly can at home. I get a little, you know, just like a Sears freezer or whatever that I can

make, I can fill up. And I started taking them ice cream, but I also started getting it all over anyone I could. So it would take it back to the market. I would put it on the desk upstairs. You were just packing it yourself into, just packing yourself into pies? I would pack it in Chinese takeout containers. So the restaurants that I had been working with would find out about it. So then I started, the restaurant started carrying my ice cream and I was just making it at home. And were you making like interesting, like using cumin and coriander raspberry was one of my big ones back then. Osmanthus? What is that? Amethus, which I hadn't discovered Osmanthus yet.

Okay. That's a flower that has like a sort of a peach scent. Oh, I got you. So the market knows that I'm doing, the people of the market knew I was doing this and I was doing everything I could just to get everybody to have this ice cream. And then, you know, wrote a plan and. And they said, yeah. Yes, I guess.

Well, they did. I don't remember what came first if we had to get the loan first. So how did you have the money? Because presumably you needed to have money and show them that you had money. Yeah. So how did you get the, how did you get it? Well, the family, the rights that I was babysitting for and nannying for, I pitched the idea to them.

They loved the ice cream. And they were like, okay, we'd love to offer you the money. And I was just like, oh, thank goodness. And they were like, but don't take it. because if you take it, we will own so much of your company right now. And just do everything you can first. It'll be here for you.

We're going to be in Toronto, but it'll be here for you if you need it. Charlie, like, I went home to Charlotte. Charlie, like, thought I was going to get the money that night. And like, I don't know, man. I don't know what happened. Like, they said yes, but they said no. And, like, you know.

And then Charlie was like, well, what if we went to the bank together? Like, maybe we can get this together. Like, maybe we can get a lot. loan from the bank, from the SBA. And that's what we did. So you launched it as Jennings. Was it called Jenny's Splendid at that time?

Jenny's Splendid Ice Creams. And you're back in business at the market. And what was the reaction at that point? Well, it was wonderful. We opened on a Michigan game Saturday, which around here is kind of a big deal. It means that nobody else is anywhere but, you know, watching the game. And what changed about your whole approach in? in Jenny's versus scream.

I mean, did you look different? Did you dress different? Was there a different aesthetic? Everything. There were a lot of things that were different. First of all, I had like two different dipping cases so that I had like signature flavors on one side and then I vowed like I'll never be out of salty caramel again. And other flavors that were I knew people really loved that I'd like hit that I was good at that were working.

And then I had another side. that was just for ice creams of the season or of my whim or whatever, inspired by pop culture or history or whatever I wanted to do. And then the other thing I did was I was determined that this was going to work. I had seen failure and I didn't want to do it again. So I like cut my hair short. I dyed it darker than my natural color, which is not, which is like dark blonde. So it was like brown.

And I had a starch white shirt and jeans and like a starch. starch apron every day. So almost like a, like a pharmacy. I like got into character. I called it shopkeeper. Like I, I like would,

was obsessed with old photographs. I would buy them on eBay. I love them. Like, I just collect them, like really old photographs of lots of people doing fun things in Victorian era or whatever.

And there's always those photographs of like the shopkeeper outside with the broom and they're wearing like, that outfit. Yeah. I'm like, that's my outfit. Wow.

That's what I'm doing. From now on, I'm that. And in doing, that, what I did was, and on purpose, I knew it, take all of the emphasis actually off of me and put it on the ice cream. And that was what was different. So when you had pink hair and you were wearing thrift shop clothes, you think people judged the ice cream differently? And, you know, in the previous... Absolutely. I think that it was a whole package. You know what I mean? I think it was

a whole package. You know, it was if I'm going, there was a food critic in town that wasn't very, real excited about scream. And I was like, if I'm going to get him to take me seriously, I need to be somebody that he would take seriously. And so I addressed that part. And it worked. I mean, it totally worked. The same ice cream he hated before, he loved now. So you are back in business, back at the North Market in a starched white shirt. And did it take off? Yeah, I mean, from opening day, We had a line that went down the market and even out the last door. I mean, it was pretty incredible that even first day when it was Michigan game Saturday. And we knew that we were on to something.

This is going to be better. And luckily, too, within that first year, Charlie's brother from Nashville moved up to join the company. And that was wonderful. So then it became kind of the three of us, actually the two of us for a long time doing this. So Tom quit his job, moved up here to join our company, which was really special and wonderful. And so then that began to form our partnership. I just want to pause for a moment and ask you about the actual ice cream because a lot of people think of premium ice cream as like as a custard-based ice cream like French vanilla, right, which is egg-based. And your ice cream wasn't egg-based.

you were using cream and milk. Yeah, and it was, you know, it was from the, I was working with a dairy, and I was using kind of a, it was stabilizers and milk and cream and all of the sort of standard ice cream recipe. So I hadn't figured out how to figure that part of it out yet,

understanding yet. Yeah. So what differentiated your ice cream were the, what was the flavors? Really the flavors, yeah, at that point. It was really the flavors. What was your ambition at that point? It's now 2002, 2003, you're back in business. It's a different look.

Were you already thinking 10 years ahead saying, I want this to be big? I want this to be the biggest ice cream in America? Or were you thinking, yeah, you know, maybe we'll have a couple shops in Columbus. I was thinking the same thought that I had that that moment that I first ate ice cream back in 1996, which is the exact same thought I have now,

which is that we want to set the standard for American ice cream. The American ice cream can be so much better that it's the best ice cream in the world when it's made a certain way. and I don't know that I knew really how big or what that was, but I just knew that that was what we were going to do. And I guess you had a turning point in 2005. You get a visit from a state regulator who says,

actually, you're not supposed to be making ice cream here. You don't have a license. What happened? What's that story? Yeah, so if you want to make ice cream and sell it over the counter, you're governed by your, you get a permit from your local health department. But if you want to make ice cream and sell it to somebody else to resell, you then moved to the state agricultural department, but we didn't know that.

So we were making ice creams and they were selling it in a couple of restaurants. And so he came over and was like, yeah, you're really not supposed to do that. So we're like, okay, so now what? Right, yeah. Well, he gave us, you know, all of the information that we needed to figure out what kind of a kitchen we realized that we needed to open a brand new ice cream production facility. Because you were making all your ice cream there at the market. at the market. So you had to basically start making your ice cream in another

kitchen. How are you able to pay for that? Well, we had to go back to the bank. And it was actually pretty terrifying because we knew pretty quickly that the business that we had set up wasn't going to be enough to pay for this new production kitchen or

facility. And so we immediately started thinking about another location to help us pay for that. And that was our Grandview location in Syrian, in Columbus and it's a great walkable neighborhood. So we went to the bank with both of those projects and we got to, and now we had some proof that we could do it.

And they gave us the loan, but it was a lot of money. I mean, it might have been $250,000. That was a frightening time because we opened Grandview, not knowing if anybody knew who we were, if anybody would come, and I had been sort of scared of having a door. You know, I mean, we were in the market and that's a beautiful environment. So essentially this regulators visit to you is what resulted in your expansion. You had to open up another story. At that point, absolutely.

We were three years old and that wasn't on our radar at all. So it was really in the beginning. It was you and Charlie, your husband, your brother-in-law, Tom. And you're growing, right? I mean, sort of slow but steady. No one's getting rich at all at this point. And I guess in 2009, you decided you guys needed someone with more business acumen to join the company? Yeah, we had had conversations about it, and I definitely knew that we needed a CEO.

That was our thing. And so we had this friend John, who we used to drink with a lot after a long day of making ice cream, who was our attorney friend, but like in the beginning of his career and in the beginning of what we were doing, and we got to know him very well. And we know, so every time Charlie and I would just talk about who's the CEO, we'd be like, you know what, it's like somebody exactly like John. But at that point, John had moved on from being an attorney here in Columbus, and he was now at GE and doing great and just like his career is sailing.

And so Charlie is on the couch. We were at home, and he like instant message John. He's like, hey, John, you know what? We're trying to hire a CEO. And like, we want to pick your brain about, like, because basically we want to hire somebody just like you. But we want to pick your brain so that you can maybe help us figure out how to find that person. And then John was like, well, hang on.

And I don't think it was the next day he drove up, but it was soon. And at some point within the next few weeks, he quit his job at GE and moved up to be our CEO. I mean, why would he take such a leap of faith? I mean, I'm... He's right over there. You can ask him. He had a pretty good job at GE. He was probably making a lot of cash.

And he's going to a company that, like, first of all, I mean, you, how are you? Could you offer him the kind of money that he was making at the time? No. And actually his first job was to make his own salary. Pretty good job. You know, and I don't know. I mean, I think that one of the things that was just such, I guess, luck for us, for the three of us, for Charlie and me and John,

is just that we knew each other really well. We had spent so much time together, and we trusted each other, you know, and there was something about that. Was John, was he sort of looking at other distribution? Like, was he looking at supermarkets and other places to get? Yeah, so we had, we were working with Dean and Deluca. We'd been working with them for maybe a couple of years.

And that was the beginning of our sort of grocery business. And so when John came in, he kind of used that as the platform to then continue, to really to begin growing that, which helped pay for him and was great. So that was kind of really the beginning of that channel. Dean and Deluca was kind of a fluky thing.

They love finding all the new stuff and food entrepreneurs and great stuff out in America. But, you know, that was just Dean of Lucca. So it was this next, you know, he sort of took that and scaled it up, which is still happening. Okay, so you expand, right?

You start to expand. And how many stores did you have after that first one, and then how long did it take you to get outside of Columbus and outside of Ohio? Yeah, so in 2006, we opened our first war out of the market

in Grandview, and then we quickly opened the Short North. And then it was Dublin and Bexley here in Columbus. And then I did a book, and that was really great, and it got a lot of national tour and all of that.

And then we opened in Nashville. So things seem to be going really well. are growing, you're sustainable, and then 2015 hits, and you have the biggest crisis ever. What happened? So in 2015, we had, I'll set the stage just a little bit. We had just opened L.A., and I had just done a collection of ice creams inspired by colors from Matisse. and everybody wanted to write about those and it was like this incredible time

and we're just riding high. And then one day we get this sort of bomb dropped on us which was that a pint of ice cream in Lincoln, Nebraska tested positive for Listeria. It was the call that none of us could have imagined ever wanted to get.

John walked by my office and I was like, you know, listening to somebody talk about cardboard. It was actually a company that we really liked, but that was what we were doing. We were talking about cardboard. And I, like, saw the expression on his face, and it was just like something I had never seen before, and I know John really well.

So I got up and left and learned that news. So you stopped production? We did. So we huddled up all the team. We had to make a lot of decisions very quickly over a very short period of time. We had to decide what we were going to do. And recall all that ice cream.

So we decided we were going to recall everything. Nobody was sick, which was great, I mean, that we knew of it yet, and we weren't sure. But we needed to prevent an outbreak. So we did. We filed the paperwork. We figured out how to do it. we got approval from the FDA and we did a full recall within, you know, hours,

which meant that 265 tons of ice cream that had been out in the world came back to us, and there we were. We now have like no ice cream and stores that are closed and no way to make ice cream because we've still got to figure out where that was Syria came from. So the clock starts ticking then at that point, and we have 600 employees. We now have nothing to do, including me, actually. Did you think there was a possibility that you would shut down,

that your business could basically end? I think at that point, when we started to sort of look around, we realized that that was it, that there wasn't anything left. And it was weird because I kept a journal at the time, and I was like, I don't even have any ideas. but I knew and I trusted that John and our incredible team were working very hard on getting to the bottom of everything.

I mean, you look at a company like Chipotle, which had its own food safety crisis, arguably they still haven't recovered from that. Not only did you guys recover from it, you're much bigger company three years later. What do you think explains it? I mean, you weathered that storm and you're much bigger today than you were then.

Well, we've learned so much, and I think we've been pretty open too about that. And I think that people relate to that kind of personality, you know, that sort of openness. In the end, the Listerio was coming out of a hairline crack over by the wall behind a piece of equipment. And it's like, we finally found it, which we celebrated. The funny thing was, not funny, but when we close our stores, we had these wonderful people who had. would put post-it notes up at the stores. And, like, they were so beautiful. And we were just like, you know what?

We're fighting for that. Like, we're fighting for this community. And I think because we raised our company as a community with our community, there was a lot of trust built into that. And that's what saved us. I mean, it's amazing. You think about this little stall at the North Market. Today, it's a company, you got 32.

stores, right? Yeah. Doing more than $30 million in annual sales. You could right now cash out. You could sell your shares. Jenys could be bought by like Unilever or Pillsbury, like Ben and Jerry's, like Hagen does, like Talentie. It could be in every 7-Eleven. And you could, you wouldn't have to work anymore. You would be set for life, super rich. Do you ever, I don't know, would you want to do that? I mean, sounds kind of great. I don't know. I don't know. Would you want to do that? I mean, sounds kind of great. I don't know. I don't know. The way you put it there, right? I don't know. I mean, I like making ice cream and I want to make ice cream and that's what I do and how I, it's actually how I think. You know, I'm 44 years old. I started making ice cream when I was 21, 22, so more than half

my entire life. Most of what I remember has been devoted to this. So for me, it's hard to imagine doing something else. I really truly love it. And ice cream is a puzzle that I still am working on. And so, I don't know, we'll see. How much of the success of your company do you think is because of all the hard work you put in and how much of it is because of luck? I think about luck sometimes. I think sometimes luck is like, you know, getting a good wave, you know, and you got to ride it as far as you possibly can. We all have luck and I had so much of it.

I mean, just being here in the city is such luck. But bad luck too. I mean, I've had really, really good luck and really, really bad luck in my life. and I feel like both have made me who I am. And then there's this like middle place between those two that you get to make decisions. And that's it. Jenny, if you saw yourself, 20 years ago,

you had a crystal ball and you saw yourself here on stage talking about this incredible success while you were toiling away at Scream and even the early days of Jenny's, would you have been surprised or would you say, I knew it all along? I would say I knew it. Yeah.

I would. I have never doubted that vision from that first moment. I've never doubted it. Jenny Britton Bauer, thank you so much for joining us. Thank you. Thank you all. Jenny Britton Bauer, founder of Jenny's splendid ice creams. We chatted in front of a live audience at the Fawcett Event Center on the campus of the Ohio State University in Columbus. And by the way, Jenny's favorite flavor is not brambleberry. crisp or re-sling poached pear sorbet, or even salty caramel. It's actually lemon buttermilk, which I have to say.

I'm not supposed to endorse things. It's amazing. It tastes like the most delicious lemon cheesecake you've ever eaten. Hey, thanks so much for listening to the show this week. If you want to hear previous episodes, you can go to how I built this.npr.org. Our show this week was produced by Rumpteen Arablewe, who also composed the music. Thanks also to Neva Grant, Sanaz-Meshkampur, Thomas Liu, and Jeff Rogers. Our intern is Nur Kudzi.

I'm Guy Raz, and you've been listening to How I Built This from NPR.