Episode #14 - Building a Green Business with Compost Queen

Episode Transcript

Meredith Matics: Welcome to Business Reflections with your host Meredith Matics, and we are here to reflect on the business topics that are affecting you today and how you can better run your business. 

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I have Jamie Blanchard-Poling, the Compost Queen of Fort Collins, Colorado here today. And I am so excited about having Jamie on the podcast today because I have been following Jamie's business since it started a couple of years ago. I just think it's a brilliant idea and don't have something like this in Orange County so I'm definitely jealous of those around her that get to do this. So Jamie, tell me a little bit about what inspired you to become the Compost Queen.  

Jamie Blanchard-Poling: So hello first. Hi everyone. Um, well, you know, to start off with it, we got to go way back. And that's when I first started composting myself and I realized how difficult it actually was. 

I went through all of the trials and tribulations of getting my compost actually turn into compost. You know, they included a lots of gross things. It included bad smells. It included, you know, just learning and researching on my own, how to figure out what to do in each of these situations. And that took a while. 

It made me realize that the process is a lot more difficult than just putting your food scraps in your backyard and letting them turn into dirt. And so once I figured out for myself and had been doing it successfully for a few years, I thought of the actual business idea while on a vacation with my mom and my grandma, back in the summer of 2018. Something about it just really stuck with me. And so I came home, I did a bunch of research on composting, what we had available in our community as far as composting goes, what was going on with composting and other areas of the United States, as well as the world. I found out that it was definitely a rising movement all over and that my local community had basically no access to it. 

One of the things is industrial composting facilities and our closest one is about 70 miles away, so it's not really accessible for our Northern Colorado communities to use those facilities. I basically came up with the idea to compost for others, essentially. And that's, that's basically my business idea, um, is to take everybody's food scraps, instead of having everyone doing it individually in their own backyards, is to put it all together because that really helps the process go faster and smoother.  

Meredith Matics: How long have you been in business?  

Jamie Blanchard-Poling: So we've now been in business for over two years. I've been able to hire an employee and we are trying to hire our second employee. And you know, this is all even amid all of the COVID stuff going on and that's because the business that I created is actually considered an essential business. You know, it it's all been working out really well.  

Meredith Matics: Jamie, can you tell us a little bit about how the structure of your business works?  I know that you get people's food scraps, but how do you gather them together? How do you get them to start composting? How does this whole thing actually work?  

Jamie Blanchard-Poling: What we do is we work kind of like a trash service. We come by once a week, every one of our customers gets a four gallon bucket. And they use that bucket over the week and put their food scraps in it. Once a week, they put it outside and be traded out for a brand new one. So we take everything out, leave them a clean new one and then that's when we take it to our farm, where we do the actual composting. 

And on that farm, we have different stalls basically made out of pallets structures. Um, and that's how we know how old each of our piles is and what, where they are in each stage. But we take everyone's food scraps. We dump them out of their buckets, put them in these stalls, and then we add the necessary other ingredients to them, such as manure, dried leaves. 

We water them, et cetera, to kind of make the right recipe, if you will, for the compost to turn into the best possible end product.  

Meredith Matics: What has ended up being the most rewarding part of the work that you were doing?  

Jamie Blanchard-Poling: That is definitely the appreciation that comes from our customers. We get thanked all the time for what we do, and I really take it to heart just because this wasn't exactly an easy business to start. So the fact that it is so appreciated by the people that use it is, it's very rewarding.  

Meredith Matics: I am super jealous of the people in your community being able to utilize a surface like this. After seeing you post on Facebook about your business, when you were getting started, I did Google it to see if there was anything in my area and there's not. There's nothing in Orange County. 

And I think this is such a necessary part of our communities going forward and our need to be better for our environment as we move forward in life.  

Jamie Blanchard-Poling: Yeah. And it's, you know, it makes such a big difference too. Over the two years of us doing this, we have taken about 20 tons of food scraps out of our local landfill. 

Meredith Matics: Oh, wow. So have you guys been able to, as a business, quantify what the benefits have been as far as like CO2 emissions and showing how your clients have been able to have a greener footprint?  

Jamie Blanchard-Poling: Yep, so actually all of our customers get a report at the end of the month and it includes how much food scraps they provided, and then what that translates into as far as CO2 reductions and methane reductions, um, as far as greenhouse gases go.  

Meredith Matics: Now to speak in terms of the long-term sustainability of your business, what were some of the challenges you've been faced with starting your business or being able to run it without running into interference from, I don't know, like local things or regulations? Like what, tell me about that aspect. What have been the challenges? 

Jamie Blanchard-Poling: There are quite a few, to be honest, but I'll just touch on a few of them. I would say the first one is funding and financing is one of the hardest things to secure. Uh, not many people understand the business concept or know that it's important yet because it's such a new industry. And even though we've been in for, in business for two years, we're still having problems with it. 

So we actually are now applying for grants and things of that nature to try to help us grow financially so that we can grow as a company, because it is such a difficult aspect of running a small business. Another challenge with the composting company specifically is the regulations. 

Meredith Matics: That was specifically what I was curious about. 

Jamie Blanchard-Poling: Yeah. Yeah. There is not a concise place to find all of this. You really have to dig and I think it's because partially it is such a new industry still. Two, it's because there are very different rules for things like the industrial facilities I talked about earlier, versus someone like me who does composting like on a farm. 

And so I actually had to figure out where to find these rules and regulations in the articles of the state of Colorado and you know, figure out which ones apply to me and which licenses I had to apply for. Luckily, I was able to get in contact with someone who was able to help me over email that works with the states that did help, but that's definitely a really hard place to get going. 

So many different things you can find out, and it's not easy to find it out. And so I've actually talked to a few other people that wanted to start their own composting businesses and I started to, you know, spouting out these numbers and things that you need to know about the regulations and how big your facility can be versus, you know, if you were to do something else. And I think I've scared some people, because it is actually a huge challenge in our state.  

Meredith Matics: I would imagine that that translates into other states trying to do environmental regulations. I know that I used to use a company that would come in collect your cans, and then they would PayPal you the money versus you taking it to a recycling place. 

And I know in California, they got shut down because they didn't file the correct regulations for recycling. So, I mean, I understand that like that following these regulations is probably really difficult and really important so you don't end up having to close your business.  

Jamie Blanchard-Poling: That's crazy. And I, and I can see that happening. It's very unfortunate because you're really trying to do a good thing. You're trying to, you know, be a green business and be good in the world and it's silly rules that you might not even know about that would make that happen. It's it's kind of sad.  

Meredith Matics: Slightly different topic, how did you decide on your service areas? Because I know you go out and collect the compost or the food scraps, I should say, to make them into compost. But how did you decide how far from your farm you would go? What areas you would hit up? How did you know? 

Jamie Blanchard-Poling: So we started in Fort Collins just because that's where I live. That's where our little farm is and it's kind of the biggest community in Northern Colorado. Uh, so we definitely have the majority of our services in the city of Fort Collins. However, we have been able to slowly expand to surrounding communities. Um, and that's based on interest, how our routes work, and how adding additional routes would work with our current routes, and also the potential for more customers in the future. 

So we do serve three smaller cities around the city of Fort Collins, which are Laporte, Timnath, and Wellington, and it would be great to be able to grow fully more to those communities just as, as we are in Fort Collins. 

Meredith Matics: Oh, how do you decide on your specific routes? Like, am I going to go to the East side today or the West side? Like how do you know? I've always wondered that about businesses that are route specific, is how do you decide on the most economical route?  

Jamie Blanchard-Poling: As I was building the company, obviously we started off with very few customers and we built it to have, you know, many more at this point in time. At the beginning, I would do all the pickups on one day. 

And I would just, uh, put them into Google maps and rearrange them to how the, you know, using the least mileage and having the most efficient route would be. Um, I have now found other route calculators online since then, that kind of do it for you. You put in all the addresses and it lets you know, the best route as far as efficiency and gas mileage and all that kind of stuff. 

Meredith Matics: They should have assumed that technology would come to the rescue.  

Jamie Blanchard-Poling: I know. That's been quite helpful because just, it was in January of this year, actually, 2020, is when we had to split up our route into multiple days. And so now we do pick up some Mondays through Thursdays has we've split up the cities and locations within the cities to consolidate our routes and make it more efficient. 

Meredith Matics: Do you have any tips for fellow business owners that want to incorporate composting into their daily business? I'm not sure if like a restaurant or a juicing place would be able to, but what do you think is that possible for other businesses?  

Jamie Blanchard-Poling: It definitely is. My first suggestion would just be Googling it and seeing if there is someone in your area doing something like this. The most common type of service is going to be a hauler, and a hauler is someone that will, you know, you'll contract with. It's just like a trash service that, um, the trash service picks up your trash and takes it to the landfill. So a hauler for composting materials picks up your compost, compostable materials and takes them to the industrial facility. Um, so that's a little different than what I do personally, just because we do have our own composting facility. Because there isn't an industrial facility up in Northern Colorado. 

But the majority of places are, you know, having these things pop up, especially in larger cities. And so if you can't find someone to do it for you, or if you don't have a facility in your region, my next suggestion would be to talk to your city council and people that work at the city. Just because once people know there's a need for it, the more likely a service will become available in the future.  

Meredith Matics: I've always thought it would be so interesting for juicing places to just partner with compost makers, because I feel like juicing is such a good compost. I personally like to make juice and I absolutely love the way it makes compost in my little backyard. Don't tell my landlord, but, um, is that a possibility to like partner with businesses like that? How does that work?  

Jamie Blanchard-Poling: You know, that there is a difficulty with that, however, that has, it has to do with small businesses bills, essentially, a lot of places, which I found out only by starting this business, is that a lot of small restaurants and small businesses, you know, juicing, coffee places, things like that have their trash bill in with their rent. 

So it's a part of their rent and they don't pay a separate bill. And so a lot of them don't want to add a separate composting bill on top of what they are already paying for. Especially the places that get large dumpsters that you can share them with, you know, other places that are right next to, next to them in the same strip mall or whatever. You know, they use that because it's what they pay for. And it's a large thing that can take everything that they're disposing of.  

Meredith Matics: Right.  

Jamie Blanchard-Poling: Even though it is going to the landfill and not being separated, in my opinion, correctly. But, uh, you know, it's, it's, it's hard because especially small restaurants and businesses right now with COVID and so many shutting down, they do not want to add another bill on to what they are already paying for. Because it's so hard to even stay open at this point.  

Meredith Matics: That is a great point that the added monetary costs would be problematic for many businesses. But I do know that you were a partner with some businesses. I remember reading about it. Can you tell me more about how you built those partnerships or how those partnerships came to be?  

Jamie Blanchard-Poling: For sure. Um, we have actually quite a few community partnerships and we absolutely love them. Um, the GoldLeaf Collective was a vegan restaurant here in Fort Collins. Unfortunately, they closed due to COVID. They were our first restaurant partnership and because we were a vegan restaurant, all of their scraps could be collected by us. 

We don't take things like meat, dairies, um, bones, oils, those kinds of things. Just because they're very difficult to compost in an outdoor setting. Um, they are compostable and industrial facility, but we are not at an industrial facility. We do everything the old, old school way. But that was really nice being partners with them because absolutely every part of their waste we could take. 

Um, and so we would get upwards of how it's like 50 gallons a week from them of food scraps. And so that was awesome, but unfortunately they did close. Um, and then we have a lot of breweries that we're partners with. We do composting one-on-one classes around the community, and a lot of them ended up being at breweries, which is pretty fun. 

Um, you know, you get different kinds of people in there. Uh, You help the brewery, you know, get people in there for, for their business. And then we get people to, you know, kind of spread the word of composting, to help people understand what it is, how they can do it, um, etc. And so it's a nice partnership to have with those types of locations, just because, you know, they're getting something out of it as well as we are. You know, creating these relationships is not that hard. 

Just because places that do want people to come in are happy to host events for free. Because they know when people come in, they're going to buy things. My husband and I are naturally very friendly people so speaking with business owners about their businesses and sharing about our own has been easy and great. 

Um, also certain businesses have actually reached out to us to help them be more green. Um, and that's how we found one of our partnerships with a business called Green Events. And Green Events holds running events around Northern Colorado, such as 5ks, 10ks, half marathons, etc. And in exchange for taking all of their compostable materials from the events, we get to have our booth set up at their events and so that's been great as well. We really help, we really enjoy being partners with them.  

Meredith Matics: So my next question would be, how did you end up making these partnerships? I know you said the Green Events came to you, but how did you get up the confidence or how did you cross that void to step into the realm of other people's businesses and be like, hey, we would be really good partners together? 

Or I think that this would be a great idea? Because I think that a lot of small business owners get afraid to step in and talk to another business owner and be like, hey, our business is we work really well together. How did you cross that void?  

Jamie Blanchard-Poling: So it was mainly about talking to the owners, mostly we, or the event manager. We would pretty much just pitch our idea and what we do. We have a very concise composting one-on-one class. Now that we've done it so many times, so we can just put it all out there, what it is, how long it takes, how many people we expect. And, um, right there, people are pretty much interested, which is really nice because most people don't know about composting. 

And so when we're able to get onto their social medias and get with their, you know, regular customers and followers that brings us a whole new audience. That we come in and we give them them something different to talk about, so that kind of helps with their customers. And then also, because we're sharing on our side and the people that are interested in just composting, you know, go to their business to see our class. 

And so it's really a mutually good for both partners in, in the situation. And, you know, like I said, it's about meeting the business owners most of the time and just, and just chatting with them. You know, sometimes we do it over email, but it seems like the smaller family owned businesses are really easy to get involved with because they try to get involved with their community as well. 

Meredith Matics: So is that the number one way that you build your customer base or do you build your customer base and other way, or how do people hear about you?  

Jamie Blanchard-Poling: So I would say there's a few different ways. One of them is definitely the classes and that's people find that out through social media and, you know, we used to go to events. 

Like I said, that's another way people were kind of hearing about us and knowing more about what was going on with composting in our community. And so, you know, unfortunately we can't really do that anymore. So there, the internet is our biggest thing right now. We use social media as far as Facebook and Instagram to really get our word out, um, and spread what we know and do, and are trying to get other people on board.  

But we also have a newsletter that goes out about quarterly to all of our subscribers. And we have a lot of subscribers that, um, you know, just visit the website and sign up for our newsletter that goes out and then that way they can learn more about us before they sign up and a lot of people do that.  

And then we also have, uh, Google ads campaign. And that's probably one of our biggest customer builders right now, being all online and not being able to do events and things.  

Meredith Matics: Do you manage the Google ads account yourself or did you outsource?  

Jamie Blanchard-Poling: We manage them ourselves.  

Meredith Matics: Oh, that's right. Your husband's really good at marketing things online. So how has that having that support system or having a spouse who can back you up?  

Jamie Blanchard-Poling: But that's actually, what helped me even start the business in the first place was knowing that I had him on my side and could help me with the things that I'm not necessarily good at things like marketing and advertising. I pretty much know nothing about, whereas he has college degree is in it. So he has been such a huge help and you know, it is difficult, but for the people out there starting small businesses, if you know, anyone just like, even as just a friend or, you know, someone from college or whatever, reach out, and just ask them questions. 

They'd be happy to talk to you even if it's just you learning things and, and trying to figure it out for yourself.  

Meredith Matics: How did you decide what was going to set your business apart or what services you wanted to provide that others were not? How did you come up with your whole plan to be different?  

Jamie Blanchard-Poling: I was able to find a lot of similar services around the country so I did base a little bit off that. I also based on, you know, the closest one to us. They're hauler service so it's not exactly the same, but I was able to compare, you know, pricing and things like that with them. And then also I did a whole business plan, you know, mock up of if I get this many customers, if I get this many customers type thing and what, what it's going to mean for growing and profits. 

Um, and so it took a lot of research, but I was able to use what others have already started to kind of base mine off of that.  

Meredith Matics: How has it been working with your business model over the last two years? Has it changed? 

Jamie Blanchard-Poling: It's mainly the same. The concepts are the same, I would say there's minute details that are different. For instance, I wanted to start off with a five gallon bucket, but we changed to a four gallon square bucket. 

And, that's one because, um, they're different. And two, because they're recognizable. Another thing that has changed is just the fact of growing. We've done different things. As far as for instance, bucket cleaning. And, you know, we use, I used to just do them by hand and then I started doing, um, you know, with a hose and then I started doing them with a pressure washer and now we're actually doing them with an undercarriage. We're flipping them upside down in a trailer and using an undercarriage pressure washer. You know, and so it's, it's little things like that, that you kind of figure out as you're going to, to help your business be the best it can be.  

Meredith Matics: I have to say, I'm super impressed that you did a business plan. I think a lot of people forget to do one.  

Jamie Blanchard-Poling: Oh my gosh. I, it was so hard. I'm not gonna lie. I had no idea how to write a business plan. That is not what I went to college for. So I really was doing my own research and figuring it out. And it was difficult. I actually went back to it not too long ago and read through it and was kind of laughing at some of the things that were in there. 

Because it was like, wow, that was, that's definitely not happening and will never happened, but it did give me a base place to start.  

Meredith Matics: There's a couple of questions that I like to end the podcast with and ask every one of our guests. And the first is what is one piece of advice you would give to a fellow business owner? 

Jamie Blanchard-Poling: You know, there, there are, I think starting with a business plan to really set your idea in motion is very helpful. I thought it was at least, and, you know, doing all the research that I did, it really helps you know that that's what you want to do as well. People come up with business ideas all the time and don't do anything about them. And they can just talk and talk and talk. 

But until you do the research and write it down, nothing is going to happen. So I think that that's a pretty important piece to start with. After that part of it, I would say the next, the next suggestion I have or advice I would give is don't give up. I can't even tell you how many times I ended up crying over something silly and wanted to just quit. And I didn't, I stuck it out and we're still here and we are still growing and we are still trying to make the world a better place. And as much as I can personally get so frustrated with some of the aspects of owning a small business, I mean, like we were saying earlier, you know, there are things that you're good at, and there are things that you're really not good at, you know? 

And so you're doing everything on your own and you know, we're talking everything from accounting, to purchasing, to customer service, to operations, to HR now that they have an employee. Marketing, advertising, everything in between, it is difficult and it is time consuming and it makes you want to rip your hair out some days. 

But personally, I am so glad that I've stuck with it because I don't think I would be happy working anywhere else.  

Meredith Matics: And the second question is how can our listeners find you on social media? Especially our friends out in Colorado who need a little bit of composting. 

Jamie Blanchard-Poling: Definitely. Um, so our handle is CompostQueenFC. FC is in Fort Collins because that's where we're based out of. 

Um, and that's on Facebook and Instagram, and that is also our, uh, website, as well as, compostqueenfc.com. So that's where we, what we use for everything so it will be easy to find.  

Meredith Matics: We want to thank Jamie for coming on the podcast. I did one on our listeners know that we will be taking a two week hiatus for the holidays. 

And then we'll be back in 2021, bringing you more fun interviews with different businesses and bringing up the new business topics that I'm sure we'll have lots of in the coming year. 

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