About a week ago, my food consultant (Meredith) and I took a frozen yogurt class.  It was through a company that hopes you’ll use their product, but I signed us up because it was a good price and seemed to have some good information.  I have no plans to use their product as it won’t work for my target market.

It was definitely worth going.  We got to make around 4 different flavors, put them through a Taylor yogurt machine, clean the machine, and learn how to use it.  For me, this was awesome.  I’ve heard about these machines for the last few years, but never got my hands on one…until now.  Also, not being very proficient in the kitchen, I really enjoyed making the product.  Now I have a better understanding of what Meredith is doing creating the bases/flavors.  We got some good questions answered, and if nothing else, it was a confirmation that what we are doing should work.

Although the class was good, the instructor was slightly discouraging and encouraging at the same time.  He said that frozen yogurt stores are closing all over the place due to over saturation.  Then, no exaggeration, he must’ve said at least 20 times that you “have to do something different”.  He means if you just do another Menchies, Pinkberrys, Yogurtland, etc., you are going to have a tough time.  If you do something different, that changes things b/c people are always interested in something different.  Every time he said it, he would stare at me (there were only 4 people total in the class) and it was pretty awkward.  I would just stare back until I started to laugh (he stared a really long time) because I know I’m “doing something different”. I would have no interest in doing what is out there.

The place that I want to create stems from my passion with yoga and all that means.  Community.  Health.  Organic. Comfort. Inspiration.  Inner Peace.  Retreat.  This place WILL be different from anything out there.

I left feeling pretty good about everything.  R&D continues.  I just hope I’ll be able to get a loan in January/February.  I’m working hard and saving as much money as I can.