Hey!  Bre here and this is the episode where we go onsite at The Neighborhood Hive to support our longtime friends Derek and Jennifer Williams and their wonderful business Olio Skin & Beard Co and our new friends Jed Matthews and Tiffany Rainwater with The Bean Whole and Jamaica Trinnaman with Hello!Bulk Markets.  The Neighborhood Hive is located at 2065 E 2100 S in Salt Lake City, Utah and is just starting renovations on their new building.  You can donate to their Kickstarter if you’d like to help the three locally owned and operated businesses along with many other local businesses that they will be nurturing.

This project has been a long time in the making with the idea just over a year old, The Neighborhood Hive was officially started in September of 2020, space procured in May of 2021 and the buildout started this month with the hope that Phase I will be ready in September.  You will hear from Derek, Jennifer, Jed, and Jamaica regarding this exciting venture!

Derek and Jennifer with Olio were first on TNUP in episode 36 where they convince Chris to start using beard oil and he has never turned back.  You’ll hear from them again in episode 71 where we are recording onsite at their old location.  We first met them when they were running a very successful booth at the Salt Lake Farmers Market (which starts up again this weekend).  They were so successful, in fact, that they started a brick-and-mortar business in which they have been extremely successful.  Olio provides a full line of skin care, beard care, tattoo care and handcrafted soap.  Ingredients are fresh and organic, and they use no preservatives.  Derek and Jennifer are very involved in the community and strive to make a positive impact.

Jamaica Trinnaman has been in the grocery business for many more years than the three years Hello!Bulk has been in business.  She was born in Logan and went to school there.  After some traveling, she ended back in Utah and has made quite the splash!  After working with Wild Oats, Whole Foods, Sunflower and Sprouts, Jamaica realized she wanted to flip the story of the traditional grocery store that has a small bulk items area and mostly sells pre-packaged products.  Her idea to create a place where consumers could shop in bulk for body care items and household cleaners in addition to traditional bulk food items.  The idea was to bring in your own reusable container (because we all have plenty of containers we don’t know what to do with) and fill them with a much product as you needed, no more, no less.  You end up paying for what you use instead of wasting your money on the package and stale product that eventually ends up in a landfill. 

Hello!Bulk is currently run from 355 N 500 W in Salt Lake City and is open seven days a week.  They started out with help from the Give Group that provided help with leasing.  Now that Hello!Bulk is a community staple, Jamaica is able to start work on consolidating her warehouse and on opening her second location at The Neighborhood Hive.  Like Derek and Jennifer, she too is involved in the community and wants to encourage walkable neighborhoods that can help lower are carbon footprints and encourage positive growth.

The Bean Whole started out as a passion project in a garage.  Jed Matthews was brewing coffee and just giving it away.  His then girlfriend and now wife, Tiffany Rainwater, encouraged him to start selling his tasty concoctions.  The Bean Whole concentrates on small batch roasting and making a quality product.  Jed was once a baker, and he knows about sugars and conversions of malts and grains and knows about how small batch coffee can change due to growing seasons.  He and Tiffany travel a lot to gain new sources and discover new coffee opportunities.  They were a business for six years before they got a brick and mortar.  Jed has a Diedrich Roaster and took a course to learn how to make the most of it.  The Bean Whole also started at the Salt Lake Farmers Market and about four bags of coffee beans.  His favorite beans are from Papua New Guinea.  The Bean Whole provides organic coffee beans for Hello!Bulk, which makes them another great partner for The Neighborhood Hive.  The Bean Whole used to be housed in the same building as Olio and when the property was purchased for redevelopment, they also lost their space and were looking for a new home.

Now we’re back at The Neighborhood Hive (TNH).  As their Kickstarter page says, “. . . we are creating a harbor we hope small businesses outgrow.”  This place will create a place where small businesses share expenses and more importantly, share risk.  TNH is a small business incubator that can give new ventures a place to see if they are ready for brick and mortar. They will have the support and foot traffic generated by the three anchor businesses.  These businesses have already been working together and now, in addition to supporting one another, they will be helping others to follow in their footsteps.  They will also start hosting the Wild Earth Market, which helps support local artists and teaches about the current environmental issues facing Utah.  10% of the proceeds go to support their non-profit partner, TreeUtah. Saying that this group of entrepreneurs wants to help their community is an understatement, they are making a difference and keep thinking of new ways to continue creating a positive change.

“We have experienced the highs and lows of running our small businesses over the years.  We’ve seen the pain points firsthand, uniquely so through COVID and we hope to address these pain points in this new, collective model.  We also passionately believe that local small businesses bring a vibrancy and value to our neighborhoods!”

In the second phase of the build, TNH plans to build a commissary/commercial kitchen that would be available to the community.  This means for folks who need one for food trucks or to create product for farmers markets.  The businesses might sell their goods at TNH or anywhere in the community.  The kitchen would be available 24/7.  Additionally, the space will be used for educational classes and will be rentable for events.  They plan to have rallies with food trucks and eventually provide local entertainment.  When they say ‘hive’, they really do want a place filled with people and buzz!

Saying that this group of entrepreneurs wants to help their community is an understatement, they are making a difference and keep thinking of new ways to continue creating a positive change.  The Kickstarter opened June 4^th and phase I is set to close June 26^th.  Their goal is $47,500 to complete the original build out.  Their stretch goal is an additional $24,00 for kitchen equipment.  Please go to the Kickstarter page to see the levels of donation available and the rewards you can reap for those levels.  Of course, these fantastic people will accept anything you can give, including just sharing this great news with your friends and family in hopes that they might be able to help.

TNUP started this podcast to highlight how fantastic Utah is and if this group of folks is anything, they are the embodiment of why we love our state so much! Support local!

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