The Pepper Place
Low-Tech Incubator:
Seeding
Sustainable
Business
When April McClung started selling her Emily’s Heirloom Pound Cakes in 2014, someone recommended that she try to get into the Market at Pepper Place. “People said there would be a three-year wait, but that didn’t concern me, and I thought we would simply wait our turn,” she says. “So I contacted Pepper Place and told them our story.” Put on a waiting list, McClung was surprised to be called after a cancellation two weeks later. The 18 pound cakes she brought to the Market sold out in less than four hours, and now, three years later, she produces more than 500 pound cakes a week, shipping them to grocery stores, restaurants and pound-cake lovers all over the country. “Pepper Place was instrumental to us in creating awareness and getting our product out there,” McClung says. “We have customers all over the country now, specifically restaurants that now order our cakes to be shipped for consumption in their restaurants.” EMILY’S HEIRLOOM POUND CAKES is not alone. Since its inception in 2000, the tables and tents at the Market at 6
PEPPERPLACE.COM
Pepper Place have spawned more than 60 brick-and-mortar and internet successes. After MIDNIGHT SALSA, BARE NAKED NOODLES, BIG SPOON CREAMERY, MCEWEN & SONS GRITS, MOOK’S CHEESE STRAWS, STEEL CITY POPS and many more have all found a wider audience at the Market that helped them grow their business. “Setting up at Pepper Place for 10 years made all the difference in our success because of our exposure,” says Frank McEwen, owner of MCEWEN & SONS GRITS. “I call it our NPR moment, because we met so many interesting folks along the way and seemed to get new business every week.” “This was always our hope,” says Cathy Sloss Jones, whose original Pepper Place vision included helping to build local economies through urban/rural connections. “We love to see success like that come out of selling at Pepper Place.” Jimmy Brogden, owner of AFTER MIDNIGHT SALSA, says they’re on the right track. “Pepper Place Market is truly a small, local business incubator,” says Brogden, who began selling his salsa at the Market in 2012 and now has his products in seven grocery stores and a number of other retail locations. “Anyone with an idea, product, service or