Pod Insights How I Built This with Guy Raz Live Episode! Jeni's Splendid Ice Creams: Jeni Britton Bauer About this episode Even as a kid, Jeni Britton Bauer knew she was going to start a business one day. But she had no idea that her love for perfume would inspire her to start experimenting with ice cream. After years of hustling, she eventually launched Jeni's Splendid Ice Creams, a company that now has more than 30 stores nationally and touts unique flavors like Brambleberry Crisp and Lemon Buttermilk. Recorded live in Columbus, Ohio.
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0:07 Speaker 00 It was the call that none of us could have imagined, ever wanted to get. A pint of ice cream in Lincoln, Nebraska, tested positive for listeria. So we decided that we were going to recall everything, which meant that 265 tons of ice cream that had been out in the world came back to us, and there we were.
0:27 Guy Raz? Did you think there was a possibility that you would shut down, that your business could basically end?
0:33 Speaker 00 I think at that point, we realized that that was it. And it was weird, because I kept a journal all the time, and I was just like, I don't even have any ideas.
0:50 Guy Raz? From NPR, it's How I Built This, a show about innovators, entrepreneurs, idealists, and the stories behind the movements they built.
1:02 Guy Raz? I'm Guy Raz, and on today's special live episode, how a college dropout from Columbus mixed hot pepper oil into chocolate ice cream, and from that built Jenny's, a growing ice cream empire with more than 30 stores across America.
1:23 Guy Raz? So, interesting little fact about the Columbus, Ohio area. It's actually one of the major food incubators in America. Wendy's started there, so did Bob Evans, Buffalo Wild Wings, Max & Irma's, yes, in Columbus. And one of the theories about why that is, is because for a long time, the population of Columbus was a pretty good proxy for the general population of the United States. So if people in Columbus liked it, there was a good chance that the rest of America would too. So if you know this, it kind of makes sense that ice cream flavors like juniper and lemon curd, or osmanthus and blackberry crackle, whatever that is, have also come out of Columbus.
2:08 Guy Raz? Because that is the city where Jenny Brittenbauer invents and then tests all of her weird and wonderful ice cream flavors. And it's an ice cream brand that could only have come from the mind of a perfume maker, which, as you will hear, was almost what Jenny became.
2:26 Guy Raz? I recently went to Columbus to meet Jenny, and we chatted in front of a live audience that, to be honest, it kind of felt like they all knew Jenny personally.
2:45 Speaker 00 All right.
2:46 Guy Raz? Jenny, it feels a little bit like your bat mitzvah, because everyone here knows you.
2:53 Speaker 00 I know every single one of you, I know that. I already know that.
2:55 Guy Raz? Yeah. So, all right, let's start at the very beginning. You moved around a lot as a kid. So first of all, what did your parents do that meant that you guys moved around a lot?
3:08 Speaker 00 I don't know, they got bored.
3:10 Guy Raz? Okay, right.
3:11 Speaker 00 My mom's in the audience, we could ask her. She got, they got, they, we moved a lot. We moved to, and it wasn't very far, but we would move to a new school.
3:19 Guy Raz? Yeah.
3:21 Speaker 00 So, from the time I can remember, I mean, we went to a new school almost every year, every couple of years.
3:25 Guy Raz? Wow.
3:26 Speaker 00 And, I don't know, it didn't bother me. But even in Peoria, Illinois, where I started out, we went to several schools there. And I moved here when I was 12.
3:35 Guy Raz? What do you remember about, like, do you remember feeling unsettled? Do you remember feeling that, you know, you didn't have stability as a kid?
3:43 Speaker 00 No, I don't, I don't feel, I didn't feel that. And the funny thing is, I'm a parent now, and I wouldn't do that to my kids.
3:49 Guy Raz? Yeah.
3:50 Speaker 00 I mean, I was also very shy and fairly introverted. You know, you'd think that that would be, you know, that would be horrible to have to go start in a new school and find new friends every year or two. But I don't really remember it being that way. In fact, when I moved to Dublin, Ohio, I moved from this small town called Dunlap, Illinois, and I think the population was like 500. 1985, I went to orientation in summer, before school started. And there were 40 other kids there. And I was like, that's so cool that the whole grade came out to like, you know, just to greet me and say, "Welcome to Dublin."
4:29 Speaker 00 But it turns out, it was just the new kids for 7th grade in Dublin, Ohio. Dublin was going through a big boom then, so.
4:36 Guy Raz? And you say, you say you were introverted as a kid. How do you think someone would have described you? Is that how, like, a grown-up would have described you? Like, "Oh Jenny, she's really quiet." Or would they have said, "Jenny, she's gonna make it one day"?
4:49 Speaker 00 No, they would have said, "So kind and patient."
4:55 Speaker 00 And quiet, rule follower, all the things that I'm not.
5:00 Guy Raz? Really?
5:01 Speaker 00 It's not that I'm not kind.
5:04 Guy Raz? Yeah.
5:04 Speaker 00 I do, that is one, I do value kindness, of course.
5:06 Guy Raz? And, and, and so I have read that, like, even as a kid, you were like already hustling, like you were selling plastic straws filled with powdered Kool-Aid and sugar and selling them as pixie sticks. Is that true?
5:18 Speaker 00 Yeah, one of my very successful businesses.
5:20 Guy Raz? Yeah.
5:21 Speaker 00 Back then.
5:21 Guy Raz? It really, actually, it sounds really delicious.
5:23 Speaker 00 I mean, we would make $10 by the end of school. We could go get pizza for the whole group.
5:25 Guy Raz? Wow.
5:26 Speaker 00 I had like other people selling them. I'd make them at night and then I had three other people selling them too. And we were selling them all over the school. I went to a big school then.
5:34 Guy Raz? And did you go to high school here in Columbus?
5:36 Speaker 00 I did. I went my last couple of years at Upper Arlington High School.
5:39 Guy Raz? And so you must have been, okay, I'm pretty good because you got into Ohio State University, right?
5:46 Speaker 00 So by the time I got to Upper Arlington, I was very good at figuring out how exactly to get Streeses.
5:53 Speaker 00 Like, I knew exactly what I had to do because I always failed math, which was fine. I threw it out. I just didn't even bother. Because then I would go to summer school and I could get an A. And they would merge the two grades together. And that made me very happy because then I could work and do other things in the evening and that was great.
6:10 Guy Raz? So how did you get into college?
6:13 Speaker 00 Okay, well, the other thing is they, they were, you know, pretty sure that I wasn't going to get into college, the guidance counselors, because I also refused to take the SAT. I really thought that was horrible. I still think that's horrible. My mom thinks that's horrible. It's horrible. You can't judge people by that kind of stuff. It's just not right. So they wanted me to do it. But you know what? That takes six weeks in a class that costs $350 and I had other things to do. So we're getting to Ohio State. So of course I applied to Ohio State. And they said, no, thanks. But I wrote them a letter. I was just like, well, okay, I know you, like, I get it. But here's what I was doing
6:56 Speaker 00 while I was not getting good grades. And the next thing I knew, I got a letter in that said I was accepted to Ohio State Fall Quarter. Yeah.
7:08 Guy Raz? All right, so you get to Ohio State and you...
7:13 Speaker 00 The Ohio State.
7:14 Guy Raz? Yes, sir. You get to the Ohio State.
7:18 Guy Raz? And you decide to study art history.
7:21 Speaker 00 So, yeah, I mean, art history kind of found me. I started in art because I'd always done art because my grandmother was an artist. My mom was very into art. I was always hanging out in the art department at school. And then I was blown away by art history. Like, knocked off my feet. Because it was like a real, like, emotional look at what really happened versus history being what other people decided history would be. I would go to art history classes and my brain felt like it was on a treadmill. I would leave out of breath.
7:57 Guy Raz? I guess it was while you were a student that you started to get into, like, making your own perfumes?
8:02 Speaker 00 I did. It was a creative time for me. I was trying to figure out what I was gonna become. Also, true that when you study art and art history mostly, everybody in your life wants to know what you're really gonna do. So you get bombarded with that question, which isn't fair, but, you know. So I was working at a pastry shop and I was thinking about maybe quitting school and going to pastry school. I knew I would have a business one day. I knew I would do that.
8:24 Guy Raz? You already knew that when you were a student, yeah?
8:27 Speaker 00 I mean, I knew that that was where I was headed. And then I got into perfuming. I had a friend who worked in the chemistry department, who was a grad student in chemistry, who would bring me little vials of scent. Chemicals that had scent, so like a spearmint or one that kind of smelled like tarragon or whatever. So then I got really into scent, because I'm really into that. And I was good at scent and I knew scent from my childhood. So that got me really into perfuming. I think I should be a perfumer. And at the time, that didn't for me mean, "So I should probably send up for some chemistry classes." That wasn't what it meant for me. What it meant for me was I need to go to the travel agency and see if I can get a one-way ticket to Grasse, France.
9:05 Guy Raz? Perfect.
9:06 Speaker 00 And hustle and figure out somebody to help me. And then I'll learn all that stuff and, you know, I'll become a nose. And that'll be great. I'll come back to America and it'll be great.
9:15 Guy Raz? So you go to the travel agency and you get a ticket to Grasse in France, right? And?
9:22 Speaker 00 No, I didn't do that.
9:23 Guy Raz? Okay.
9:23 Speaker 00 I didn't do that. I didn't do that. So I'm doing that. That's so that's where, okay, so that's where I was.
9:28 Guy Raz? That was your plan?
9:29 Speaker 00 I'm gathering essential oils in my house and I'm building them and...
9:33 Guy Raz? And were you wearing them? I mean, yeah?
9:35 Speaker 00 Yeah, I was wearing them. I was selling them. I was giving them away. And I did that for a couple of years. I read a few books on it. And then I had this one essential oil that was the oil of cayenne that doesn't have a scent at all. It just has physical heat on your tongue. So I would sometimes use that to cook with. And some of the other essential oils too. I would throw them in pasta or whatever, like basil and whatever. But I had this essential oil of cayenne and I was trying to figure out something to do with it. And it occurred to me that maybe I could mush it into some chocolate ice cream.
10:01 Guy Raz? Like from your freezer?
10:03 Speaker 00 Well, I went and bought some. I didn't have any.
10:04 Guy Raz? You thought I'm gonna mix cayenne oil into my chocolate ice cream?
10:08 Speaker 00 Mm-hmm. So I was gonna make a spicy frozen chocolate.
10:14 Speaker 00 And so I did that and it was incredible. So I took a bite and it was cold and I tasted the sugar and then the chocolate. And like a few seconds later, the heat.
10:25 Speaker 00 And that was the first time I ever had, you know, ice cream that was hot. And it was like this whole thing. And I thought it was like some, just amazing. So immediately I made a rose petal ice cream with vanilla and started to think like, ice cream is the perfect carrier of scent and of these oils, right? So I started like quickly making different sort of edible perfume in a way.
10:47 Guy Raz? Huh.
10:47 Speaker 00 Through ice cream.
10:48 Guy Raz? You were buying like pints of Haagen-Dazs or whatever? And just mashing it in and experimenting?
10:53 Speaker 00 Yep.
10:54 Guy Raz? And at what point did you say, hey, wait, you know, maybe I'm gonna try to make my own ice cream and do this?
10:59 Speaker 00 Oh, maybe two weeks later.
11:03 Guy Raz? Wow. So this is like, this is probably like 90...
11:06 Speaker 00 I was just mashing it in.
11:07 Guy Raz? This is probably like 1994, 95, something like that. And did you know how to make ice cream? I mean, you worked at a bakery, so you had some skills. But did you know how to start, where to start?
11:17 Speaker 00 I did not. I had the Cuisinart canister ice cream machine that you have on. I mean, I bought it for this project. I hadn't really liked ice cream that much. And I should put that into some context because I like all desserts. So ice cream was just on the bottom, right before cookies, all cookies. I liked ice cream. I just didn't love ice cream.
11:38 Guy Raz? And how long before you were making decent ice cream? Because I have to assume like some of that ice cream probably just sucked.
11:43 Speaker 00 Well, now I would say it all was horrible.
11:45 Guy Raz? OK.
11:45 Speaker 00 But at the time, I was thinking it was getting pretty good. So first of all, when I put the essential oils into the ice creams, like I knew in that moment, I had one of those moments that you read about, where like the sky opened up and I knew that I was going to make ice cream for the rest of my life. And I think that the reason it happened is because I had been studying all the things that interested me. And this is exactly where they all converge. I understood that butterfat melted below body temperature because I was working with other fats that perfumers often use fats that are solid at room temperature but melt immediately on contact with your skin. And so I knew that butterfat was that kind of a fat and that ice cream was a perfect carrier of scent. I knew that scent could tell stories because I've been thinking about that
12:30 Speaker 00 from an art perspective. And then I knew a little bit about pastry because I've been working in the pastry shop and the pastry kitchen and thinking about that. So those things kind of crossed over in ice cream. And I didn't know what I needed to do. I thought I knew what I needed to do and I needed to quit school and go do it.
12:48 Guy Raz? I guess it was around 1996 when you did that. You actually dropped out of the Ohio State University to do an ice cream stall, which is kind of crazy. What was like the mental leap that you took to say, all right, you know what? I'm going to drop out and start an ice cream stall.
13:06 Speaker 00 Well, it was actually really easy because I was in a figure drawing class and they're three hours. And...
13:14 Speaker 00 I don't know why that's funny, but I was in a figurine class there for three hours. And a model walked in that I always had trouble drawing. And she's tall and beautiful and very angular. And so I couldn't get good work when I would draw her. And so I was just deflated. And I sat there and I just wanted to go home and make ice cream. So I did. I just got up and left. It was portfolio week. I left all of my art there that I had done. I left all of my supplies there, which, those are expensive. If you know anybody who's an artist or studies art, you work hard to get those supplies. So I knew I wasn't going back.
13:52 Guy Raz? I mean, at that point, presumably you got good enough at ice cream making. What was your next step? How did you even have the money to open up a shop to make a business?
14:06 Speaker 00 Well, I was lucky. I had a friend. And so she and I were messing around with this together. And she was able to get all of it from her parents. So that was kind of great. So that was actually the easy part for that one. And I started stocking the North Market. We started going to the North Market. The market is an indoor public market in Columbus.
14:26 Guy Raz? And you went to them and said, "Hey, I want to get a contract with you to have a stall"?
14:32 Speaker 00 Yeah, I thought it would be pretty easy because the market had just moved into a brand-new old warehouse, but a much bigger space than what it had been in. It'd been in a quonset hut for many years. So we started going there. And they were just not into it. They were just not into it at all. They wanted the market to be a grocery destination in Columbus. And ice cream just didn't fit at all with that vision that they had for the market, at all. So we just kept going back. And they just kept saying no.
15:00 Guy Raz? Really?
15:00 Speaker 00 Mm-hmm. And there was a show on PBS. This is the turning point. There was a show on PBS about ice cream. They had another one about sandwiches. They had a couple of different shows they'd put out. And they were really good. And on the Ice Cream Show... They showcased a company called Bassett's at the Reading Terminal Market in Philadelphia. And it's a heritage amazing ice cream company. And they started right there in the market and they still have a thriving business in the market. And I had to call my grandfather to have him record this on the VCR in Florida, because apparently I didn't know anybody with VCR. I don't know, but that was what I did. Anyway, he recorded it and sent it to us. And that was how we got in the market.
15:44 Speaker 00 Because they watched that and realized that an ice cream company can be a part of a thriving market.
15:50 Guy Raz? So you go to the North Market in Columbus and you set up a stand and you guys call it Scream Ice Cream.
15:59 Speaker 00 Scream Ice Cream.
16:00 Guy Raz? Pretty good name. And so...
16:04 Guy Raz? And by the way, were you already doing sort of weird and unusual flavors? Or was it just like chocolate, vanilla, strawberry? Like, what were your first few flavors?
16:12 Speaker 00 Salty caramel was one of the first ones. A wild berry lavender. A lot of the flavors that we do now, of course, the hot chocolate one. And then I started using ingredients from the market to scent and flavor the ice cream. So we would have, so I'd buy basil or some herb from the farmer outside and then use that steep in the cream. And cream would absorb all of that scent. And then you lock it in there when it's frozen and then it would sort of unfurl on your palate.
16:39 Guy Raz? Just out of curiosity, if we went back in time 20 years and tried that ice cream, would it taste exactly like it tastes today?
16:45 Speaker 00 No.
16:45 Guy Raz? No.
16:45 Speaker 00 It wouldn't. It would, it was, some of the flavors would be similar. Salty caramel was similar. But it was in the body and texture of the ice cream that I wasn't able to get right.
16:57 Guy Raz? So what did people make of you guys at this stall? Because you were super young and kind of like alternative, like...
17:05 Speaker 00 Yeah, I mean, I had pink hair most of the time and I wore goofy outfits and a lot of vintage stuff. And I thought it was cool. I thought it was like, I thought it was like the artist making ice cream. And it's funny looking back on that too, because I'm like, I never even, like, I never got to the artist part. Like, I was studying art, you know? I mean, I never even did that, you know? But I just thought that was cool. That's like a cool business. You, you know, do something different every day and people will come in and be just so excited to see what you're doing that day.
17:38 Guy Raz? Yeah.
17:39 Speaker 00 It took me a long time to realize that that's not what a business is. It's not how even I approach businesses.
17:47 Guy Raz? Did you get lots of great feedback? Was there a lot of buzz around Scream?
17:52 Speaker 00 There was definitely not a lot of buzz around it. Maybe a little bit in the beginning. Some people in the market would come by and they liked our ice creams. But we had nine-dollar days. I think the worst day I ever had was a three-dollar day.
18:06 Guy Raz? Wow.
18:07 Speaker 00 That might have been, yeah, I mean, one ice cream cone. Yep, we barely got by, but we did. I made $638 a month for the entire time we were open. I mean, I took that home to live off of for those three, four years.
18:21 Guy Raz? I mean, it must have been a grind, right? Because you're selling ice cream all day and you're making it all night there in that stall.
18:27 Speaker 00 I was making it all day, selling it all day.
18:32 Speaker 00 And it was great. I mean, it was great for a long time. It was really great. I would wander the market, talk to merchants. I got to learn about everything that they do. I learned from the cheese guy all about cheese, from the wine guy all about wine. I had a lot of time. The market's only busy when it's busy and then it's not busy. So I learned a lot. I learned everything I know about food. I learned everything I know about business and people and all of that from the market from those days. And I would make ice cream and sell it over the counter and learn how people reacted to it.
19:03 Guy Raz? Did it feel to you like you were flailing? Or did it feel to you like it was kind of working?
19:09 Speaker 00 Of the first few years, it felt like it was about to work.
19:14 Speaker 00 And then it started to feel like we were flailing. Yeah, and then it started to feel like, you know, I don't know that this is ever going to work. I don't know that my business partner is going to be really into this. She really wasn't. She was kind of gone the whole time. She wasn't there. And I don't know that I have it in me to do this forever. It was a lot. It was a lot of work.
19:30 Guy Raz? I guess around this time, between 2000, 2002, you decided to take an ice cream course at Penn State, which is a famous course, Ben & Jerry's. That's how they learned how to make ice cream. They did it via correspondence.
19:42 Speaker 00 Well, I took that right before we closed Scream, which doesn't make a whole lot of sense.
19:47 Guy Raz? You guys shut Scream down.
19:49 Speaker 00 The same month. I went to the Penn State Ice Cream School.
19:52 Guy Raz? I mean, you'd been making ice cream for four years. So why did you feel like you needed to take that ice cream course?
19:59 Speaker 00 I felt like I wanted to know how everybody else does it. That's where I got a lot of it. I mean, because I'd been doing it for four years. When I went to Penn State, it was like all of these, this intuition that I had was suddenly knowledge that I now knew, right? It was not just intuition. I now had that. And so it was like, yes, yes. It was like, I've got it, you know? And it was wonderful, too, because, you know, ice cream is all math. It's math and chemistry and science. And that is just not at all what I did when I was younger. And so that was really cool, being in that environment and seeing these people putting these things together and to see ice cream in the lab. And this was really cool. I was really into it.
20:40 Guy Raz? What did your friends say to you? What did your mom say to you? Was she like, you know, maybe you should, you know, try something else? And were there people who were saying, you know, this was fun and great, but maybe you should get something a bit more stable?
20:52 Speaker 00 Yeah. Yeah, that's pretty much what everybody said.
20:55 Guy Raz? Yeah.
20:56 Speaker 00 Yeah, that's exactly what everybody said.
21:01 Guy Raz? In a minute, how Jenny decided to completely ignore everyone's advice and then resurrect her ice cream company. I'm Guy Raz, and you're listening to How I Built This from NPR.
21:28 Guy Raz? Hey, welcome back to this special live edition of How I Built This from NPR. I'm Guy Raz. OK, so it's the year 2000. Scream Ice Cream is no more at the North Market. Jenny's out of work, but still, she can't accept the idea of totally abandoning ice cream.
21:48 Speaker 00 It felt like a really long time for me, but it was probably six months before I started writing another plan to make a back in ice cream.
21:54 Guy Raz? And what was it? Was it just people saying, when are you going to get back to doing it?
21:59 Speaker 00 One of the things that really struck me when I was in that in-between time, when I was really sort of in limbo of what I was going to do, was it was a moment that I, on a Saturday, I had saved like, I mean, I had like $5 and I had a Vogue magazine. I was going to a coffee shop. And I was really excited to get their orange scone. And like... That was gonna be my whole Saturday. And I went in there and I stood in the long line and I got up to the front and I was like, "Oh, no, I'll have the orange scone and a coffee." And they're like, "Oh, we're out of the scone."
22:33 Speaker 00 And I was like, "What?"
22:37 Speaker 00 They didn't care. And I just like, kind of backed away from the line. I remember this so perfectly. Backed away from the line and like, the line is still there and all these people are still excited or whatever and I wasn't anymore. And I turned around, I walked out with nothing to do. But when I walked through the door, it like, hit me. Like, that is exactly what I was doing to all of my customers at Scream. Because at Scream, I would only have whatever I wanted to make every day. And so, yeah, I knew that like, everyone loved salty caramel, but like, I can't make it every day.
23:05 Speaker 00 And so, once I realized that the thing that draws me back to a business every single time, no matter what the business is, is the thing that I had last time. I was there. I might change my mind when I get there, but it's always the thing I had last time that I loved. That changed everything for me. And once I, once I sort of got that, I think everything in my life sort of changed. I mean, I think I, I started writing a business plan. I immediately just knew what we had to do. You know, like, and then it started to kind of snap into place. Like, all the mistakes that I had made at Scream were really coming into focus.
23:38 Guy Raz? You needed money to start this business and you needed a location. So how did you, how did you deal with that?
23:46 Speaker 00 Of course, I was hoping we'd get back in the North Market because it would be difficult to imagine my company if the market didn't exist. I mean, you can start up there fairly inexpensively, thirty, forty thousand dollars, and you've got two million people walking through every year.
24:04 Guy Raz? Like, like Pike's Place in Seattle or, or Reading Terminal in Philadelphia. Like, that's, that is how important North Market is in Columbus?
24:13 Speaker 00 Yeah, yeah. And it's, it's in the middle of the city and everybody goes there and all the highways lead to the North Market. So I was hoping to, to get back into the market. And so, I got a job at the market and started hanging out in the market all the time. Start talking to everybody at the market, getting to know all the management, and just trying to change, you know, just to change the way they were thinking about me.
24:38 Guy Raz? Because they thought of you as, I guess, somebody who tried and failed.
24:41 Speaker 00 Like a punky kid, you know, who had this artsy ice cream that maybe wasn't an entrepreneur, a real, real business person, or whatever.
24:47 Guy Raz? So when you went back to them and you said, "Hey, I want to open up an ice cream shop," were they like, "Yes, come back"?
24:52 Speaker 00 Oh, no, not at all. No. No.
24:56 Guy Raz? What'd they say?
24:58 Speaker 00 Yeah, "No, we're not, we're not doing that again." It was a lot of no's.
25:02 Guy Raz? And, and for how long?
25:04 Speaker 00 I don't know, but at least a year, I would think. Yeah.
25:06 Guy Raz? Wow. So how did you convince them? How did you get the market to accept your new iteration of, of an ice cream store?
25:13 Speaker 00 Well, I started making ice cream and, you know, taking it to the market. At that point, Charlie had gotten me this machine.
25:21 Guy Raz? Charlie was your boyfriend at the time, now your husband?
25:24 Speaker 00 And he's now my husband. And Charlie bought me this machine that I couldn't afford. It was like a $1,200 Italian gelato machine. And, and I was trying to save for it because I had these friends who I wanted to invest in the company. And they were like the only people I knew with money. And so, and I was their babysitter. And so I, um...
25:47 Speaker 00 But they were great. They were just wonderful. And I, and I was very close to them. And so I had told them all about the ice cream and whatever. And I wanted to get them ice creams so, so that they could give me money. And I couldn't get this machine. I just couldn't save up for it. And they were going to move to Toronto, back to Toronto. And so it became urgent that I get this machine so that I can show them what I'm doing so I can get the $40,000 from them. And I went home one day and Charlie had bought it for me. And so then I'm back in business. I start making ice cream, like as much as I possibly can at home. I get a little, you know, just like a Sears freezer or whatever that I can make, I can fill up. And I started taking them ice cream, but I also started getting it all over anyone I could. So I would take it back to the market. I would put it on the desk upstairs.
26:28 Guy Raz? You were just packing yourself into...
26:29 Speaker 00 Little gift from me.
26:30 Guy Raz? Just packing yourself in the pies?
26:31 Speaker 00 I would pack it in Chinese takeout containers. So the restaurants that I had been working with would find out about it. So then I started, the restaurants started carrying my ice cream. And I was just making it at home.
26:43 Guy Raz? And were you making like, like interesting, like using cumin and...
26:46 Speaker 00 Coriander raspberry was one of my big ones back then.
26:49 Guy Raz? Osmantus? What is that?
26:50 Speaker 00 Osmantus, which I hadn't discovered osmanthus yet. But that's a flower that has like a sort of a peach scent.
26:56 Guy Raz? Oh, I got you.
26:58 Speaker 00 So the market knows that I'm doing the, the people at the market knew I was doing this. And I was doing everything I could just to get everybody to have this ice cream. And then, you know, wrote a plan and.
27:07 Guy Raz? And they said, yes, I guess.
27:09 Speaker 00 Well, they did. I, I don't remember what came first, if we had to get the loan first.
27:13 Guy Raz? So yeah, how did you, how did you have the money? Cause presumably you needed to have money and show them that you had money to. So how did you get the, how'd you get it?
27:21 Speaker 00 Well, the family, the rights that I was babysitting for and nannying for. I pitched the idea to them. They loved the ice cream. And they were like, okay, we'd love to offer you the money. And I was just like, oh, thank goodness. And they were like, but don't take it. Because if you take it, we will own so much of your company right now. And just do everything you can first. It'll be here for you. We're going to be in Toronto, but it'll be here for you if you need it. Charlie, like, I went home to Charlie, like, thought I was going to get the money that night. Like, I don't know, man. So I don't know what happened. Like, they, they said yes, but they said no. And like, you know.
27:59 Speaker 00 And then, and then Charlie was like, well, what if we went to the bank together? Like, maybe we can get this together. Like, maybe we can get a loan from the bank, from the SBA. And that's what we did.
28:10 Guy Raz? So you launched as Jenny's. Was it called Jenny's Splendid at that time?
28:14 Speaker 00 Jenny's Splendid Ice Creams.
28:16 Guy Raz? And you're back in business at the market. And what was the reaction at, at that point?
28:22 Speaker 00 Well, it was wonderful. We opened on a Michigan game Saturday, which around here is kind of a big deal. Means that nobody else is anywhere but, you know, watching the game.
28:32 Guy Raz? And what, what changed about your whole approach in, in Jenny's versus Scream? I mean, did you, did you look different? Did you dress different? Was there a different aesthetic?
28:43 Speaker 00 Everything, there were a lot of things that were different. First of all, I, I had like two different dipping cases. So that I had like signature flavors on one side so that, and then I vowed like, I'll never be out of salty caramel again. And other flavors that were, I knew people really loved, that I'd like hit, that I was good at, that were working. And then I had another side that was just for ice creams of the season or of my whim or whatever. Inspired by pop culture or history or whatever I wanted to do. And then the other thing I did was I, I mean, I was determined that this was going to work. I had seen failure and I didn't want to do it again. So I like cut my hair short. I dyed it.
29:27 Speaker 00 Darker than my natural color, which is not, which is like dark blonde. So it was like brown. And I had a starched white shirt and jeans and like a starched apron every day.
29:37 Guy Raz? So almost like a pharmacy?
29:39 Speaker 00 I like got into character. I called it shopkeeper. Like I, I like would, um, was obsessed with old photographs. I would buy them on eBay. I still, I love them. Like I just collect them, like really old, old photographs of lots of people doing fun things in Victorian era or whatever. And there's always, there are always those photographs of like the shopkeeper outside with the broom and they're wearing like that outfit.
30:01 Guy Raz? Yeah.
30:02 Speaker 00 I'm like, that's my outfit. Like that's what I'm doing from now on, I'm that. And in doing that, what I did was, and on purpose, I knew it, take all of the emphasis actually off of me and put it on the ice cream. And that was what was different.
30:16 Guy Raz? So, so when you had pink hair and you were wearing thrift shop clothes, you think people judge the ice cream differently? And, you know, in the previous?
30:24 Speaker 00 Absolutely. I, I think that, um, you know, it was, it was a whole package. You know what I mean? I think it was a whole package. You know, it was, if I'm going, there was a food critic in town that wasn't very, real excited about scream. And I was like, if I'm gonna get him to take me seriously, I need to be somebody that he would take seriously. And so I dressed that part and it worked. I mean, it totally worked. The same ice cream he hated before, he loved now.
30:58 Guy Raz? So you are back in business, back at the North Market in a starched white shirt. And did it take off?
31:06 Speaker 00 Yeah. I mean, from opening day, we had a, a line that went down the market and, and even out the like last door. I mean, it was pretty incredible that, that even first day when it was Michigan game Saturday and we knew that we were on to something. This is, this is gonna. Be better. And luckily, too, within that first year, Charlie's brother from Nashville moved up to join the company. And that was wonderful. So then it became kind of the three of us, actually, the two of us for a long time, doing this. So Tom quit his job, moved up here to join our company, which was really special and wonderful. And so then that began to form our partnership.
31:49 Guy Raz? I just want to pause for a moment and ask you about the actual ice cream. Because a lot of people think of premium ice cream as like, as a custard-based ice cream, like French vanilla, right? Which is, which is egg-based. And your ice cream wasn't egg-based. You were, you were using cream and, and milk.
32:07 Speaker 00 Yeah, and it was, you know, it was from the, I was, I was working with a dairy and I was using kind of a, I was, it was, it was stabilizers and milk and cream and all the sort of standard ice cream recipes.
32:18 Guy Raz? You were doing that.
32:19 Speaker 00 So I hadn't figured out how to figure that part of it out yet, understanding yet.
32:23 Guy Raz? Yeah. So what, what differentiated your ice cream? Were the, what was the flavors?
32:27 Speaker 00 Really the flavors, yeah, at that point. It was really the flavors.
32:31 Guy Raz? What was your ambition at that point? It's, it's now 2002, 2003. You're back in business. It's a different look. Were you already thinking 10 years ahead saying, I want this to be big. I want this to be the biggest ice cream in America? Or were you thinking, yeah, you know, maybe it'll, we'll have a couple shops in Columbus?
32:49 Speaker 00 I was thinking the same thought that I had at that moment that I first ate ice cream back in 1996, which is the exact same thought I have now, which is that we want to set the standard for American ice cream. And American ice cream can be so much better that it's the best ice cream in the world when it's made a certain way. And I don't know that I knew really how big or what that was, but I just knew that that was what we were going to do.
33:12 Guy Raz? And I guess you had a turning point in 2005. You get a visit from a state regulator who says, actually, you're not supposed to be making ice cream here. You, you're, you don't have a license. What, what happened? What's that story?
33:24 Speaker 00 Yeah, so if you want to make ice cream and sell it over the counter, you're, you're governed by your, you get a permit from your local health department. But if you want to make ice cream and sell it to somebody else to resell, you then are, you then move to the state agricultural department. But we didn't know that. So we were making ice creams and they were selling it in a couple of restaurants. And so he came over and was like, yeah, you're really not supposed to do that. So we were like, okay, um, so now what?
33:50 Guy Raz? Right, yeah.
33:52 Speaker 00 Well, he gave us, you know, all of the information that we needed to figure out what kind of a kitchen we need. We realized that we needed to open a brand-new ice cream production facility.
34:01 Guy Raz? Because you were making all your ice cream there at the market. So you had to basically start making your ice cream in another kitchen. How were you able to pay for that?
34:10 Speaker 00 Well, we had to go back to the bank. And it was actually pretty terrifying because we knew pretty quickly that the business that we had set up wasn't going to be enough to pay for this new production kitchen or facility. And so we immediately started thinking about another location to help us pay for that. And that was our Grandview location. It's here in Columbus, and it's a great walkable neighborhood. So we went to the bank with both of those projects. And now we had some proof that we could do it. And they gave us the loan, but it was a lot of money. I mean, it might have been $250,000. That was a frightening time because we opened Grandview not knowing if anybody knew who we were, if anybody would come.
34:54 Speaker 00 And I had been sort of scared of having a door. You know, I mean, we were in the market, and that's a beautiful environment.
35:00 Guy Raz? So essentially, this regulator's visit to you is what resulted in your expansion? You had to open up another store?
35:07 Speaker 00 At that point, absolutely. We were three years old, and that wasn't on our radar at all.
35:13 Guy Raz? So it was really in the beginning. It was you and Charlie, your husband, your brother-in-law, Tom. And you're growing, right? I mean, sort of slow but steady. No one's getting rich at all at this point. And I guess in 2009, you decided you guys needed someone with more business acumen to join the company?
35:36 Speaker 00 Yeah, we had had conversations about it, and I definitely knew that we needed a CEO. That was our thing. And so we had this friend, John, who we used to drink with a lot after a long day of making ice cream, who was our attorney friend, but like in the beginning of his career and in the beginning of what we were doing. And we got to know him very well. So every time Charlie and I would start to talk about who's the CEO, we'd be like, you know, it's like somebody exactly like John. But at that point, John had moved on from being an attorney here in Columbus, and he was now at GE and doing great, and just like his career's sailing. And so Charlie's on the couch, we're at home, and he like... Instant message, John, he's like, hey, John, you know what? We're trying to hire a CEO and like, we want to pick your brain about like,
36:20 Speaker 00 because basically we want to hire somebody just like you. But, but we want to pick your brain so that you can maybe help us figure out how to find that person. And then John was like, well, hang on. And I don't think it was the next day he drove up, but it was soon. And at some point within the next few weeks, he quit his job at GE and moved up to be our CEO.
36:39 Guy Raz? I mean, what, why would he take such a leap of faith? I mean, um.
36:44 Speaker 00 He's right over there, you can ask him.
36:46 Guy Raz? He was, he had a pretty good job at GE. He was probably making a lot of cash and he's going to a company that like, first of all, I mean, you, how, could you offer him the kind of money that he was making at the time?
37:01 Speaker 00 No. And, um, and actually his first job was to make his own salary.
37:08 Guy Raz? Pretty good.
37:12 Speaker 00 You know what? I don't know. I mean, I think that one of the things that was just such, I guess, luck for us, for the three of us, for Charlie and me and John, is just that we knew each other really well. We had spent so much time together and we trusted each other. You know, and there was something about that.
37:30 Guy Raz? Was John, was he sort of looking at other distribution? Like, was he looking at supermarkets and other places to get?
37:37 Speaker 00 Yeah, so we had, we were working with Dean and DeLuca. Uh, we, we'd been in, working with them for maybe a couple of years. And, um, and that was the beginning of our sort of grocery business. And so when John came in, he kind of used that as the platform to then continue, to really to begin growing that, which helped pay for him. And was great. So that was kind of the, really the beginning of that channel. Dean and DeLuca was kind of a fluky thing. They love finding like all the new stuff and they'll, you know, food entrepreneurs and, and great stuff out in, in America. But, you know, that was just Dean and DeLuca. And so it was this next, you know, he sort of took that and scaled it up, which is still happening.
38:15 Guy Raz? So, okay, so you expand, right? You start to expand. And, um, and how many stores did you have after that first one? And then how long did it take you to get outside of Columbus and outside of Ohio?
38:29 Speaker 00 Yeah, so in 2006, we opened our first store out of the market in Grandview. And then we quickly opened The Short North. And then it was Dublin and Bexley here in Columbus. And then I did a book. And that was really great. And it got some national, a lot of national tour and all of that. And then we opened in Nashville.
38:49 Guy Raz? So things seem to be going really well. You guys are growing, you're sustainable. And then 2015 hits and you have the biggest crisis ever. What happened?
39:04 Speaker 00 So in 2015, we had, I'll set the stage just a little bit. We had just opened LA. And I had just done a collection of ice creams inspired by colors from Matisse. And everybody wanted to write about those. And it was like this incredible time. And we're just riding high. And then we get, and then one day we get this, you know, sort of bomb dropped on us, which was that a pint of ice cream in Lincoln, Nebraska tested positive for listeria. It was the call that none of us could have imagined, ever wanted to get.
39:45 Speaker 00 John walked by my office and I was like, you know, listening to somebody talk about cardboard. It was actually a company that we really liked, but that was what we were doing. We were talking about cardboard. And I like saw his, the expression on his face. And it was just like something I had never seen before. And I know John really well. So I got up and left and learned, learned that news.
40:11 Guy Raz? So you stopped production?
40:15 Speaker 00 We did. So we huddled up, all the team. We had to make a lot of decisions very quickly over a very short period of time. We had to decide what we were going to do.
40:27 Guy Raz? And recall all that ice cream?
40:29 Speaker 00 So we decided that we were going to recall everything. We, nobody was sick, which was great. I mean, that we knew of it yet and we weren't sure. But we needed to prevent an outbreak. So we did, we filed the paperwork, we figured out how to do it. We, we got approval from the FDA and we did a full recall within, you know, hours, which meant that, that 265 tons of ice cream that had been out in the world came back to us and there we were.
41:00 Speaker 00 We now have like no ice cream and stores that are closed and no way to make ice cream because we've still got to figure out where that Listeria came from. So the clock starts ticking then at that point and we have 600 employees. We now have nothing to do, including me, actually.
41:17 Guy Raz? Did you, did you think there was a possibility that you would shut down? That your business could, could basically end?
41:26 Speaker 00 I think at that point, when we started to sort of look around, we realized that that was it, that there wasn't anything left. And it was weird because I kept a journal at the time and I was like, I don't even have any ideas. But I knew and I trusted that John and our incredible team were working very hard on getting to the bottom of everything.
41:51 Guy Raz? I mean, you look at a company like Chipotle, which had its own food safety crisis. Arguably, they still haven't recovered from that. Not only did you guys recover from it, you're a much bigger company three years later. What do you think explains it? I mean, you, you weathered that storm and, and you're much bigger today than you were then.
42:10 Speaker 00 Well, we, we've learned so much and I think we've been pretty open too about that. And I think that people relate to that kind of personality, you know, that sort of openness. In the end, the Listeria was coming out of a hairline crack over by the wall behind a piece of equipment. And it's like, we finally found it, which we celebrated. The funny thing was, not funny, but when we closed our stores, we had these wonderful people who would put Post-it notes up at the stores and like, they were so beautiful. And we were just like, you know what? We're fighting for that. Like, we're fighting for this community.
42:51 Speaker 00 And I think because we raised our company as a community, with our community, there was a lot of trust built into that. And that's what saved us.
43:04 Guy Raz? I mean, it's amazing, you think about this little stall at the North Market. Today, it's a company, you've got 32 stores, right?
43:11 Speaker 00 Yeah.
43:12 Guy Raz? Doing more than $30 million in annual sales. You could, right now, cash out. You could sell your shares. Jennies could be bought by, like, Unilever, or Pillsbury, like Ben & Jerry's, like Haagen-Dazs, like Talenti. It could be in every 7-Eleven. And you could, you wouldn't have to work anymore. You would be set for life, super rich. Do you ever, I don't know, would you want to do that? I mean, it sounds kind of great. I don't know, but, you know.
43:41 Speaker 00 Right. I don't know, the way you put it there.
43:44 Guy Raz? Right?
43:45 Speaker 00 I don't know. I mean, I like making ice cream, and I want to make ice cream. And that's what I do, and it's actually how I think. You know, I'm 44 years old. I started making ice cream when I was 21, 22. So more than half my entire life, most of what I remember, has been devoted to this. So, for me, it's hard to imagine doing something else. I really, truly love it. And ice cream is a puzzle that I still am working on. And so, I don't know, we'll see.
44:09 Guy Raz? How much of the success of your company, do you think is because of all the hard work you put in? And how much of it is because of luck?
44:17 Speaker 00 I think about luck sometimes. You know, I think sometimes luck is like, you know, getting a good wave, you know? And you've got to ride it as far as you possibly can. We all have luck, and I had so much of it. I mean, just being here in this city is such luck. But, but bad luck, too. I mean, I have had really, really good luck, and really, really bad luck in my life. And I feel like both have made me who I am. And then there's this, like, middle place between those two that you get to make decisions. And that's it.
44:47 Guy Raz? Jenny, if you saw yourself, 20 years ago, you had a crystal ball, and you saw yourself here on a stage, talking about this incredible success, while you were toiling away at screaming, and even in the early days of Jennies, would you have been surprised? Or would you say, "I knew it all along"?
45:03 Speaker 00 I would say I knew it. Of course.
45:13 Speaker 00 Yeah, I would. I have never doubted that vision from that first moment. I've never doubted it.
45:25 Guy Raz? Jenny Brittenbauer, thank you so much for joining us.
45:28 Speaker 00 Thank you all.
45:32 Guy Raz? Jenny Brittenbauer, founder of Jenny's Splendid Ice Creams. We chatted in front of a live audience at the Fosset Event Center on the campus of the Ohio State University in Columbus. And by the way, Jenny's favorite flavor is not Brambleberry Crisp or Riesling Poached Pear Sorbet or even salty caramel. It's actually lemon buttermilk, which I have to say, I'm not supposed to endorse things. It's amazing. It tastes like the most delicious lemon cheesecake you've ever eaten.
46:12 Guy Raz? Hey, thanks so much for listening to the show this week. If you want to hear previous episodes, you can go to howibuiltthis.npr.org. Our show this week was produced by Ramtin Arablouei, who also composed the music. Thanks also to Neva Grant, Sanaz Meshkhanpour, Thomas Lu, and Jeff Rogers. Our intern is Noor Kutsi. I'm Guy Raz, and you've been listening to How I Built This from NPR.
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