An Interview With Ben Ari
Brass Tacks: While our new office had it’s Why and we felt good about creating that energy, it’s also still an office, and people don’t necessarily want to work on couches or at a dining room table. So it’s not just a hanging out space, it has plenty of opportunities for independent work and privacy if there are calls or meetings that are a little more sensitive.
As a part of our series called “How To Design Office Spaces That People Love To Work In”, we had the pleasure of interviewing Alison Cayne.
Alison Cayne is the founder of Haven’s Kitchen, the next-generation pantry staple company delivering better for you flavor shortcuts for busy home cooks.
In 2012, Alison opened the Haven’s Kitchen Cooking School in NYC, and in 2018, launched its first product — a line of fresh, squeezable sauces, now available in over 2500 stores across the U.S.
Alison is the author of the critically acclaimed Haven’s Kitchen cookbook (Artisan 2017) and has contributed to publications, including The New York Post, Architectural Digest, Food52 and Goop. She is also the host of In the Sauce, a podcast for early-stage founders and operators about building consumer brands.
Thank you so much for joining us in this series! Before we dive in, our readers would love to learn a bit more about you. Can you tell us a story about what brought you to this specific career path?
I’m a mom of 5 and have been teaching cooking in some way or another for 25 years. In 2010 I went back to school to get a masters in food systems / food studies and everything I learned led me to one main conclusion: home cooking is good for our personal health, our communities and our planet.
So in 2012, I opened Haven’s Kitchen, a cooking school in NYC for people who simply wanted to come and learn how to make dinner. We were profitable year one, thanks mostly to our amazing private events team. After a few years, 2 things started popping up for me — 1) I kept hearing the same thing from our students: We don’t need meal kits, we don’t need anything fancy. We just need good sauce like the ones we’re learning in class — and 2) My mission was to help home cooks feel like champions because that’s the only way to get them to cook more, but we could only really realistically fit 100 people into classes a week.
So we decided to create a line of sauces as fresh and delicious as homemade, based on recipes that people may find intimidating or challenging to make. We launched them in 2018 at 14 Whole Foods in NYC, then went regional in 2019, then national in 2020 the week the pandemic started…That May, I closed the cooking school and the sauces grew 600%, so as hard as it was closing the school, we’re now able to reach millions of people a month in their home kitchens and while they’re grocery shopping through all of our educational content.
Can you share the most interesting story that happened to you since you started this career?
This whole ride — now over a decade — has been interesting! Not always fun, building things from scratch is never simple, and there are so many variables, and partners -but I’ve grown not to expect it to be smooth. I would say the most interesting thing that’s happened to me is watching these ideas, products and projects that start in my head becoming not only reality but become other people’s. Whether the cafe was their favorite place, our Chimichurri is their favorite condiment, or our YouTube page is their go-to destination for cooking inspiration and help, it’s not mine anymore. That’s such a gift, and also such a responsibility. The idea that you can make something that is integral in people’s lives is incredible and means I have to be willing to adjust depending on their needs, opinions, etc. Lots of learning.
It has been said that sometimes our mistakes can be our greatest teachers. Can you share a story about a mistake you made when you were first starting and a lesson you learned from that?
I’ve made a lot of mistakes! We made a cranberry sauce our first year in production that was a disaster, I’ve invested in marketing initiatives that led to absolutely nowhere, I’ve barked up investor’s trees that were a total waste of everybody’s time. I like to think I’ve learned from each one and now I have the pattern recognition to avoid some of the doozies. I’d say the biggest mistake any founder can make is hiring wrong. As much as I’ve tried to abide by the “hire slow, fire fast” rule, the reality is that startups and small businesses are usually strapped for humans and we make very hasty decisions. On top of that, the dynamics are always changing, so it can be really challenging to find people who can teach you, but also be super scrappy. Then there’s the culture fit, which takes time to really codify and priotitize. The problem with a hire gone awry is that it doesn’t just cost the company, but it’s such a waste of the person’s time and energy, as well as a drain on the rest of the team. It’s critical that everyone is crystal clear on the expectations of the role, as well as the soft-skills — when you force something that isn’t aligned for everyone, it hurts everything.
Can you please give us your favorite “Life Lesson Quote”? Can you share how that was relevant to you in your life?
Pema Chodron is my favorite teacher — all the life lessons are in her writings. And they all kind of come down to this: “We think that the point is to pass the test or to overcome the problem, but the truth is that things don’t really get solved. They come together and they fall apart. Then they come together again and fall apart again. It’s just like that.The healing comes from letting there be room for all of this to happen: room for grief, for relief, for misery, for joy.”
It’s not easy, but I try not to bypass or act on my bad/sad feelings. We all have so many techniques, some healthier than others, to avoid the hard feelings. We self-medicate in so many ways, just to avoid feeling upset or embarrassed or misunderstood. Knowing that those are all normal feelings, and that they are simply a part of being alive is helpful, because now I can allow myself to feel crappy, verbalize why to myself, and even feel where it’s lodging physically in my body. I try not to layer any sweeping stories on top of the feelings, or tell myself I shouldn’t have them. I try to do the same with my family and my team, let’s just feel the tough stuff, don’t minimize it, or maximize it. Dig in, and we’ll get through it.
None of us are able to achieve success without some help along the way. Is there a particular person who you are grateful towards who helped get you to where you are? Can you share a story about that?
I’m honestly so grateful to everyone who has been on this path with me, whether it was short lived or long-term, because I’ve learned something from each and every one of them. That said, I gotta give a special shoutout to Courtnie, our Head of Marketing, who came to Haven’s Kitchen five years ago to help me build it and has risen to every single challenge along the way. She’s been a constant source of support, wisdom, getting the job done, and true partnership since day one. There are a lot of stories, but suffice to say every founder needs someone to help them understand themselves and their impact on others. We need that person who can say “What is it about the website that isn’t working for you?” “What’s bugging you about the way that interaction happened?” “Did you mean to say X, because it came out like Y.” “I know you’re nervous, but remember we have a really good plan and we can be flexible but also stay strategic.” Most of all, she’s always thinking about our community, the way consumers cook and think, and what they need. She’s amazing.
What are some of the most interesting or exciting projects you are working on now? How do you think that might help people?
Over 75% of consumers say they’re cooking more than they did in 2019, but the same issues persist: lack of time, lack of inspiration, lack of healthier alternatives to add flavor to their meals and snacks. While our fresh line solves for those issues, the fact that it’s refrigerated has made it pretty challenging to grow quickly. So, we are VERY excited to launch a whole new, shelf stable, product line in early 2024. We’ve always known Haven’s Kitchen is a platform of pantry products, not just the one line of fresh sauce, and now it’s becoming reality! We’ve created a very special, clean-label condiment that makes bold, global flavors super easy for people to squeeze as they please, and it’s going to bring a lot of people a lot of joy at meal and snacktime. It looks like we’re going to be in close to 2000 stores with the line by next summer, and we’re finally going to be able to sell DTC and Amazon, yay!
Thank you for that. Here is the main question of our discussion. What are your “Five Things You Should Do To Design Office Spaces That People Love To Work In” and why?
1. Pull vs Push: It’s a marketing concept, but really the idea works in most situations. Forcing an outcome is never going to be as satisfying as if people come to it on their own, because it makes them happy. In the case of the office, my goal was to create such an inviting, happy space that our team would want to be there as often as possible. We’ve never had to tell anyone to return to the office, it’s just where we like to be.
2. The IKEA Effect: People value something more if they’ve been a part of building it. That’s true for a meal, an organziation and in our case, our office! When I first leased the new space (a year after we closed the cooking school), I sent a google survey and started a new Pinterest board so everyone could send ideas, wish-list items, thoughts about what would make them happy in a new space. Now when people walk in, they see the plant wall they created, the rug inspired by their photo, or the coffee mugs they put on their wish list.
3 .Define the WHY: I’m a big believer in defining the purpose(s) of a project. When we started thinking about a new space, it started with the simple question, “Why are we creating a space?” As simple as it sounds, it helped us verbalize what we wanted. We wanted a place to cook together, for recipes and content. We wanted a place to collaborate IRL and to enjoy each other’s company. We also wanted a place to welcome industry friends, and have cooking classes and parties. After defining it was less about desk work, we focused on ways to create the vibe we were after: A large wood table that doubles as a dining table, soft seating in the “living room” area, a bright kitchen with lots of natural light and space for cameras, and a big white board for team sessions.
4 .Brass Tacks: While our new office had it’s Why and we felt good about creating that energy, it’s also still an office, and people don’t necessarily want to work on couches or at a dining room table. So it’s not just a hanging out space, it has plenty of opportunities for independent work and privacy if there are calls or meetings that are a little more sensitive.
5 . Context: Our situation was unique in that we didn’t have any place to return to when it was time to think about “returning to work.” The cooking school shut down very abruptly with Covid, and while it was nice to re-think what a space just for the CPG company (without the classroom and cafe) would look like, we also missed the school a lot. So, with any new space, it’s nice to have reminders of what was, the roots of the company etc. For us, our 30ft art wall is an homage to cooking school — not just the massive stair wall that was covered in art in the old space, but we also hung a bunch of stuff on the new wall that came from various parts of the cooking school on the walls. Now, surrounded by new, more colorful prints, it grounds the wall with history and context, but still feels fresh and new.
You are a person of great influence. If you could start a movement that would bring the most amount of good to the most amount of people, what would that be? You never know what your idea can trigger. 🙂
Going back to Pema Chodron — she talks a lot about how in any given situation, discussion, moment, you can either add sanity or add chaos. There’s certainly a lot of chaos around us these days, some natural, some semi-natural, and some caused by people out there almost purposely acting like madmen to provoke and confuse. We can’t control all that, but we can control our everyday interactions and we can, if we calm ourselves down, try to add more sanity. We can be less defensive, more aware of our impact, more thoughtful about our reactions and how our behavior may cause others to react. I’m not saying everyone needs to be nicey-nice all the time — that’s not authentic. But when you look at it through the lens of “Am I adding sanity here?” and “What can I do to calm this situation down?” it changes the picture.
We are very blessed that some of the biggest names in Business, VC funding, Sports, and Entertainment read this column. Is there a person in the world, or in the US whom you would love to have a private breakfast or lunch with, and why? He or she might see this, especially if we tag them 🙂
I’m just excited for people who want to add more flavor to their snacks and meals to read about our products and try them. That said, feel free to tag Harry Styles.
How can our readers further follow your work online?
Our store locator and 500 recipes are available at www.havenskitchen.com and you can be my friend on linkedin
Thank you so much for joining us. This was very inspirational!
Alison Cayne Of Haven’s Kitchen On How To Design Office Spaces That People Love To Work In was originally published in Authority Magazine on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.