Entrepreneurship and Gratitude with Djenaba Johnson-Jones
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In this solo episode, host Djenaba Johnson-Jones shares her experience with practicing gratitude and the positive impact it has had on her business, Hudson Kitchen. She discusses starting a gratitude journal and the therapeutic benefits it provides.
In this episode, you will learn…
Djenaba’s gratitude for the Hudson Kitchen community members
Why she sleeps well at night
Djenaba’s joy of hosting in-person events and upcoming virtual events that you can register for
Her love of the work that she does with food entrepreneurs
Subscribe to the Food Means Business Podcast with Hudson Kitchen founder Djenaba Johnson-Jones to hear the personal stories and “secret ingredients” of abandoning your day job and starting a CPG food business.
Links mentioned in this episode…
The Secret Documentary
Hudson Kitchen Events
Register for Pitch Like A Pro: 4 Steps to the Perfect Wholesale Pitch
Register for The Top 3 Hiring Mistakes (And How to Avoid Them)
Getting and Staying on Retail Shelves with Alli Ball
From Home Kitchen to a Nationwide Brand: Get Gluten-Free Sourdough Products Delivered Right to Your Doorstep With Sadie Scheffer
About Djenaba Johnson-Jones:
Djenaba Johnson-Jones is the founder and CEO of Hudson Kitchen, a food business incubator that enables entrepreneurs to start, sustain, and scale profitable food businesses. After working in business development at some of the biggest media brands for 15 years, Djenaba was clear about one thing when she was laid off in 2014: This was an opportunity for a new beginning.
The creation of Hudson Kitchen came out of Djenaba’s own experience of facing countless obstacles when planning to launch her own food business. Upon doing more research and realizing this pain point also presented an opportunity, she shifted to the Hudson Kitchen concept. Hudson Kitchen provides food businesses with 8,000 square feet of commercial kitchen and storage space, mentorship and coaching, networking events, and educational programming.
About Hudson Kitchen:
Hudson Kitchen is a shared commercial kitchen and community for CPG businesses in the New York Tri-State Area. From production space to mentorship to networking, we empower founders to start, grow, and scale a profitable food business.
STAY CONNECTED WITH DJENABA JOHNSON-JONES:
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Djenaba Johnson-Jones (00:01.366)
Hello, welcome to the Food Means Business podcast. I am host, Djenaba Johnson-Jones, and I'm also the founder of Hudson Kitchen, which is a food business incubator in Northern New Jersey. Typically, I interview CPG founders and industry experts, but this week I decided to do a solo episode. So this year is my ninth year in business, and at the end of this year, end of 2024, we will celebrate the fifth year that Hudson Kitchen's production facility has been open. So while the core of the business is the same,as what I outlined in my original business plan, I didn't realize what it means to actually run a business that's open 24 seven 365. As you can imagine, it comes with its share of challenges. So sometimes, you know, when you're in the midst of a challenge, it's hard to focus on all the things that are going right. I mean, it's really easy to focus on what's going wrong. So before the start of the year, I decided to start a gratitude journal. So let me stop here and say, I didn't go buy one of those fancy journals that they sell at the beginning of the year.
I literally found an empty book with lines. I think I actually got it from my bank and kind of just got started. So I get up early in the morning, I'm typically up around 5 a.m. and I really like the silence because I have some time to think and I kind of sit in the semi-dark, put on a pot of coffee and just reflect on what's been going on and I'll kind of write out what I'm grateful for. Some days the page...
it gets filled easily. I'm writing and writing and writing, and other days it's just a few sentences. And sometimes it's like, I'm so happy that I woke up this morning. I'm so happy that I get to drink this coffee because I really enjoy doing that. So sometimes it's like super, super simple. So I've been doing this over the past two months and I really found it to be therapeutic, almost like a form of self care. Recently, I watched a documentary called The Secret, which focuses on the law of attraction.
Part of attracting things you desire requires that you are happy or you have gratitude about the things that you already have. During the program, one of the speakers mentioned a gratitude prompt that I really liked and I started using it. It goes, I'm so happy and grateful that. So today I just wanted to share a few of the highlights from my journal using that phrase. So first, I'm so happy and grateful for our kitchen member community. I recently came out.
Djenaba Johnson-Jones (02:24.046)
across a quote by Coretta Scott King. She is an author, activist, civil rights leader, and also happens to be the wife of Martin Luther King Jr. And she said, "'The greatness of a community is most accurately measured in the compassionate actions of its members.'" This really resonated with me because I think the reason why I share kitchen facilities like Hudson Kitchen Work is because we have a really amazing community.
Our members really care about the space and they also care about each other and they're willing to lend a helping hand to fellow members when needed. And I just love seeing that. Also, as you can imagine, it takes a lot to maintain our 8,000 square foot facility, the sheer amount of people that use the space really cause things to break on a regular basis and obviously need to be repaired. So next time, so happy and grateful for our service providers. These are the folks that help us maintain the facility.
like our amazing cleaning service, equipment repair, plumbing, and HVAC maintenance companies, just to name a few. They show up when we call and they explain repairs in layman's terms one time. Of course, it happened at night recently.
the walk-in fan started spewing all this water. And I recently learned all about how they get clogged sometimes. And so it was really nice to have them really explain to me kind of what was going on and help me figure out how we can prevent it in the future. But anyway, I really sleep easy at night knowing that these providers are there and that the facility is well taken care of and that we can continue to deliver the service that we promised to our members. I also...
something excited happened recently in that we started doing in-person events again. So I started Hudson Kitchen by doing events and workshops, and I was actually looking at our Eventbrite account the other day and noticed that we've had 45 events since 2016. I just love getting folks together to learn and network. It was, as I mentioned, the foundation of the business. So I am so happy and grateful that we hosted that event. At the end of January, it was called Meet the Buyer.
Djenaba Johnson-Jones (04:33.23)
And the goal was to bring together emerging brands with grocery store buyers. So the first event, and I hope to do this more this year, is we brought in the president and COO of Insera Shoprite, Jim Dory. It's amazing. And we also brought in current Shoprite suppliers, the Ascender Mere Sisters, the creators of Thumbred. They share their story.
Jim talked a lot about how to get into the stores and kind of what they're looking for. And people got to network and sample food from about 12 different food vendors. So it was a good time and I really can't wait to do it again. If you're interested in going to some of our events, you can go to the HudsonKitchen.com slash events. In fact, I'm recording this at the end of February 2024. We are having two virtual events in March.
One on March 13th with Allie Ball. She is the former grocery buyer and founder of Food Biz Wiz, and she'll teach the four steps to the perfect wholesale pitch. And then on March 27th, Sadie Scheffer, who is the founder of Hire Like a Badass and also the CEO of Bread Srsly, will share the top three hiring mistakes and how to avoid them. And these are workshops you do not want to miss. Both these ladies are fantastic.
If you want to learn more about them, they actually were featured on the podcast over the past year and I will link them up in the show notes. So please take a listen and get to know them a little bit more. And lastly, I'm so happy and grateful that I still love the work that I do. I wake up every day excited, even with all the challenges about working with food entrepreneurs. It's a pleasure to have a behind the scenes look at these businesses.
to watch them overcome their challenges and to see their businesses grow. It's honestly such a blessing. So I would love to hear what you're grateful for. Shoot me an email at Djenaba at the hudsonkitchen.com. My name is spelled D-J-E-N-A-B-A. And jnava at the hudsonkitchen.com. Please let me know what you decided to do. If you started a journal, if you're whatever you're grateful for, I would love to hear from you.
Djenaba Johnson-Jones (06:42.771)
Thanks so much for listening and have a great day. Until next time.