About our ingredients
Soup is healthy delicious food, but only as healthy as the ingredients you use. Part of its magic is that you start with water (filtered in our case) and then extract the nutrients and flavor from the ingredients. Done well, and if you allow enough time, the nutrient extraction is thorough, leading to a delicious healthy broth and soup. That is why we use organic vegetable, organic or pasture raised chicken or 100% grass fed beef whenever we can - because we want to extract good stuff, not stuff like pesticide residues, antibiotics, bad fats, etc…
The other side of course is cost. Soup is not a fancy food, and it should not be only accessible to high income individuals, so we have to strike a balance here. So far, this is our approach:
Price our soups depending on their actual cost. High protein thick stews cost more in ingredients than brothy vegan soups. We therefore will not charge the same.
Assess the value of certain ingredients, and risk of contaminants. Some produce is cleaner than others, we look at the “dirty dozen” and “clean 15” lists like here to see which conventional options are cleaner. Our ingredient panel on our soups will list with an asterisk* for which ingredients are organic.
High quality meats are big drivers of cost. We will offer some soups that are “lighter” or “brothier” while still having protein or a bone broth that can be less expensive. We will also look for other proteins that can offer value - currently beef prices are at recent highs nationally, so I’m going to look at lamb, pork or other proteins to offer value.
As much as we can, sell directly to our customers. Selling through stores or distributors means they have to take a cut and that pushes prices higher.
As always, I’m always looking for ideas. Feel free to drop me a comment in the feedback page.
Trying to strike that balance between quality and cost…
Thanks for reading.