At the time of writing, Denver Seitan Company is about two and a half months old. I know that I haven’t posted about it here yet – we’ve been a little busy prepping for the more or less official launch of this wheat meat beast. ;)
A big part of the momentum behind Denver Seitan Company has been CHOMP, a monthly vegan dinner run by Plants and Animals Denver. Josh, one of the points on our Glowing Triangle Shuriken of Business Doom, is an organizer, so it’s a natural fit. At October’s CHOMP, we brought a ton of logs to sell and plenty of samples (probably too many samples, actually), including some raffle items and a few other giveaway logs. Some people paid us, even a few at our desired price point, but we more or less burned money on the promotional value of the event.
In hindsight, it was more than worth it. The response online and off was incredible, and built momentum that propelled us into serious planning sessions. We returned to November’s incarnation of the vegan feast with some modified recipes and slightly fewer logs than last time. To be honest, we were a bit tired from all the cooking and thinking and raw material purchases. This CHOMP was make or break. And we…maked?
We turned a profit, at least in an isolated sense. The ingredients that I’d purchased for that night would last us at least two other cooking sessions, so there was plenty to go around. We sold every log that we’d brought before dinner was over, which is crazy. We even had to wrap up a few of the logs that we’d brought to chop up as samples!
Money in our pockets at the end of the night – cost of materials to last for a few more weeks = Something in the black. A positive change. A profit. Now granted, in the history of the company, we’re still in the red. Start-up costs will eventually be met, but at least for that one night we were a “functional” business.
I’m looking forward to a few more evenings such as this. Demand for our product is growing. I’ll more formally introduce Denver Seitan Company on this blog some time hence, but for now, we continue to move forward.
We are the Denver Seitan Company. You will be convinced of the merits of wheat meat. Resistance is futile.
Actually, resistance is pretty much fine, cuz we’re not gonna force this lifestyle on anyone. It’s too awesome and we don’t want to water down our mojo. ;)