How Little Black Box Baked Goods is Turning a Crisis into Opportunity

After leaving her 13-year corporate job in 2013, Crystal Israel decided to take some time off and enjoy a simple passion of hers: baking. With her background in foodservice and her entrepreneurial nature, what began as taking baked goods to local farmer’s markets soon grew into the Little Black Box Baked Goods enterprise with retail distribution and significant expansion on the horizon. While invigorated and rewarded, Crystal was already navigating this rapid growth and the entrepreneurial challenges that inherently come with it, before the COVID-19 pandemic in the spring of 2020 created an entirely new set of challenges that she—and many other entrepreneurs—are continuing to navigate to this day.

“When we looked at the previous year versus the then current year, we were down significantly and had to seriously ask ourselves, ‘what do we do?’ ‘What does this pivot look like?’” said Israel, founder and owner of Little Black Box Baked Goods. “Prior to COVID, we did a lot of in-person events. Our business was part wholesale and retail and part face-to-face, which was how we’d grown to this point. Farmer’s markets shut down, there were fewer outlets for sales, so panic definitely set in. It was incredibly stressful, but we have learned to live with how COVID has impacted the business.”

Little Black Box Baked Goods isn’t simply baked goods, however. It’s all the goodness the comes inside of those tasty creations, too. Commercial baking, according to Israel, can use too many chemical-laden ingredients, so she found a way to make her own baked fillings with far fewer. In the beginning, this led to her creating her own line of jams, jellies, and other jarred, conserved fruit. Israel continued to grow her business organically through word-of-mouth, local market appearances, and networking before entering her first retail agreement with Winn-Dixie in 2015. Three years later, Little Black Box Baked Goods was in 15 local Walmart stores, and shortly thereafter the opportunity presented itself to expand to 50+ locations through north and central Florida. But around that same time, the economic impacts of the pandemic were beginning to take full effect.

“Growth is expensive. Every time you take on new stores, you have to buy the jars, ingredients, etc. When you add 35+ additional stores, it’s very expensive to ramp up so quickly,” said Israel. “But in order to even pursue that opportunity, the business had to maintain its necessities, which was quickly becoming a significant challenge as we were losing substantial revenue.”

“I was very nervous about taking on debt, so I didn’t apply for loans, but then the LISC Jacksonville grant came up,” added Israel. Little Black Box Baked Goods applied for and was awarded a grant from Wells Fargo’s Open for Business Fund, created to help small businesses stay open and sustain jobs during the pandemic, which LISC Jacksonville administered locally. “The grant was a lifeline in helping us keep our doors open. Our landlord and others were great, but we were still behind. LISC helped us get caught up and fix some of the damage that COVID had done to our business, but also look again to the future of what I need to do to be able to grow.”

Pivoting, as well as growth, now has a whole new meaning to Little Black Box Baked Goods. Because of the grant, Israel was able to ramp up production to fulfill her retail commitments and began expanding into online sales. However, as every entrepreneur knows, an essential component to sales, no matter the type, is telling your company’s story and developing and promoting your brand. To help her craft the story behind her brand, Israel is also now able to tap professional support.

“It’s a different set of challenges being a small, local brand when you don’t really have much of a marketing budget,” said Israel. “Both locally and regionally, and with retail and online, the challenge is to get the word out. It’s relatively easy to get on the shelves but getting from the shelf to the cart is the goal.”

As Israel looks to the future, her goals include becoming a strong, regionally recognized brand and continuing to expand into additional retailers. While she contemplates a brick-and-mortar location on the horizon, she is unsure what the post-COVID future holds.

“In a perfect world, I’d love to open a small retail space to purchase jam and baked goods if it is feasible. I’d still have online and retail, and I would have this small, fun place to shop and mingle,” added Israel. “To me, success doesn’t have to be becoming this international brand like a Smuckers. While that’s definitely an accomplishment, I’m happiest when I’m in the kitchen, cooking.”

Now, hopefully, Israel can remain more grounded in her true passion. “I guess I’m a classic entrepreneur. I started out wanting to do this one thing; now, it’s grown, and it seems I do everything but that one thing! I just want to keep the joy and passion in what I do.”

For more information about Little Black Box Baked Goods, click here. For more about the Wells Fargo Open for Business grants, click here.