The smell of fresh-baked apple pie is a warm memory for David Barash, who remembers baking pies from scratch with his mom in the 1960s.
But that pleasantly sweet smell is more than just a memory for Barash. These days, he's banking on the allure of fresh-baked pie in a fast-paced world to build a new business. At the same time, he's hoping to help preserve an old agricultural tradition in Vermont.
After about a year of intense research and planning, Barash launched the Vermont Mystic Pie Co. in dozens of New England stores last year. The company's all- natural, bake-and-serve apple pies appeared in freezer chests in September. They are made with Vermont-produced King Arthur Flour and butter from Cabot Creamery packaged in Steven Huneck-designed boxes.
The date was well-chosen.
"Pie sales, especially apple pies, are clearly more dominant in the fall and winter because of the harvest of apples and then into Thanksgiving and Christmas," Barash said.
However, what Barash noted is that sales traditionally fall off after the holidays and the turn of the year. That fact has spurred him on to try to shape his business so that it can ride out the potentially sharp swings of a seasonal market.
Barash had help from long-time friend and former business colleague Ben Cohen of Ben and Jerry's Ice Cream. The pair shared the common goal of creating a sustainable business that fit into Vermont's agricultural picture. Barash and Cohen exchanged ideas about the kind of product to create and worked together on marketing strategies. Start-up investment for the company came from The Barred Rock Investment Fund, a company set up by Cohen using money from the sale of the famed ice cream company to Unilever.
Seasonal Supply
The first issue Barash faced in making the equation work was ensuring a sufficient supply of fruit.
"We were interested in the notion that our pies would be made from fresh fruits that are seasonally available," he said.
To do that and not have a glut of apples pies in the fall and none during the rest of the year meant choosing the right apple -- one that was great for pies, would store well and was available in sufficient quantities in Vermont.
Steve Justis, senior agricultural development specialist at the Vermont Agency of Agriculture, helped Barash make the right choice. Together they found an adequate supply of Empire, Cortland and Northern Spy apples from Champlain Orchards. Barash chose Northern Spys for the majority of his pie filling.
"The Spy is a good keeping variety," Justis said. "They don't ripen until early October and they hold up in cold storage pretty well."
But then Barash hit a major headache -- processing the apples. The commercial apple industry has declined 30-40 percent in the last 15 years. That meant that fewer orchards have on-site processing equipment for peeling and coring apples.
"The lack of processing capability is a huge issue in this state and it's been a big issue and it's probably going to become a greater issue," Justis said. "I give Dave Barash praise for starting his business and making as many efforts as he has to use as many suppliers and processors in Vermont as he can because it is a challenge."
What Barash did with Justis' help was locate some older equipment that could peel and core apples at the orchard so they could be prepared at peak freshness. "It's probably not as fast as he would like, but it's adequate for his purposes now," Justis said.
In addition to ensuring a good supply of apples for his pies, Barash said he intends to extend the season in other ways.
"We're working for a year-round business and so we're coming out with other flavors that will help extend the season, like blueberries in late summer and strawberry/rhubarb early on," he said.
Justis said this a good approach for developing a more even year-round market, although he predicts it won't be all smooth sailing.
"We have talked about some of the other fruits that are grown in Vermont that might be applicable in pies," Justis said. "I suggested to him that using wild Maine blueberries might be the next place to go, and we talked about using strawberries and rhubarb and things like that. I think he can get rhubarb processing up quicker than strawberries. We grow some of the best strawberries you've ever tasted in Vermont, but if you get into a rainy period at the end of June and beginning of July you end up with a lot of rotted berries."
Building Demand
On the other side of the equation is the ebb and flow of demand for a product. Justis maintains that pie sales are not seasonal, although he acknowledged that sales of most things dip after the Thanksgiving through Christmas holiday period.
Barash said the drop in sales is something that he's anticipated to last from about February through June, so he has been focusing on ways to bump up sales in that period.
The first tactic is clearly in making the pie a frozen item so that it's available year-round. A second tactic is in marketing pies alongside another product with strong sales through the year. That's where Ben and Jerry's Homemade Ice Cream comes into the picture in a significant way: Vermont Mystic Pies will be marketed alongside the premium dessert.
"We've also been doing quite a bit of sampling in stores throughout the winter," Barash said. "We bake off the pies and serve them to customers who are doing their shopping, trying to get them to think about warm pie on a cold day."
Will this be enough to convince the public that pie eating is just as good in spring as during the rest of the year? Barash hopes so. He sees pie eating as something that will help pull people together.
"We're trying to get people thinking about family and friends gathering around the hearth for warm pie on a cold night," he said.