Branching Out

glazed salmon uses Stuarto’s pink Himalayan sea salt, hickory-smoked black pepper, wild dill, and lemon olive oil. And while Lawrence doesn’t go overboard with product promotion during class, he does explain what makes Stuarto’s products worth having in the cupboard. To avoid “crying over your onions,” try leek olive oil, he advises. In his catering business, Lawrence uses gallons of butter olive oil because its proprietary mix of herbs perfectly mimics the taste of butter, with “absolutely no dairy.” It tastes like “chewing on a stick of butter,” he says.

No newcomer to building business

Cooking classes are just one of the building blocks Utgaard has used as he has introduced Lexingtonians to extra virgin olive oil and balsamic vinegar. He’s no novice when it comes to growing a business.

When he came to Lexington and opened the frst Stuarto’s in 2010, it was his fourth major venture, the ffh if you count a local garbage collection business he launched in his Wisconsin town in his youth. He’s probably best known as founder of Sportsman’s Warehouse, a company he grew to 73 stores and $10 million in daily sales before the 2008 fnancial crisis forced him to sell the business to a shareholder. Tat loss, coupled with a fnancially devastating divorce, lef Utgaard to start over, this time selling oils and vinegars instead of fshing rods and rifes.

At the time, owners of another Lexington olive oil business disparaged him, saying Utgaard didn’t know anything about olive oil. Tey were not wrong, he admits. “I didn’t know much, but I knew I could learn.”

And he did. A hale, hearty Midwesterner, he’s always been a hands-on owner. In the early days of Sportsman’s Warehouse, he drove a forklif. Today, managing a company on a much smaller scale, minus the Learjet and Ferrari he once owned, he waits on customers, packs shipments, gives advice on oil and vinegar pairings, and studies the olive oil market to make purchases, seeking oils from the most recent harvests with the best quality ratings. He’s compiled a mailing list of 15,000, used to market the business. He’s expanded the stores’ inventory, doubling the number of oils and vinegars from about 15 each to 30 and adding many other products — from spice mixes, salts, and sugars to jars of olives and sweet peeled garlic cloves. In addition, Stuarto’s carries Kentucky Proud products like Elmwood Inn teas, Midway’s Hosey Honey, and Kentucky