Local Soup That Sells Out the Farmers Market

Sep 22nd, 2017

It's been nearly three years to-the-day since I first met Lisa.  She was a mom-turned-chef, cooking up soup 12 quarts at a time in a small kitchen in Carmel. Every week at the local farmers market she sold out of everything she could make in that tiny kitchen.  She had a feeling that she may be onto something big. Turns out, she was right.

Lisa had asked for help producing even more soup.  At the time, I was CEO of a frozen food manufacturing plant in Greenfield focused on local food products. I’ll be honest, we were struggling. And the equipment required to produce soup was expensive. But we took a risk anyway, purchased two 15-gallon tilt kettles, and made our first batch of Urban Ladle in December, 2014. I’m so glad we did.  By the following spring, we were shipping Urban Ladle soups to 30 stores around Central Indiana.

Today, you can find Urban Ladle on quite a few local grocery store shelves around Indiana. But her growth and success has not come at the cost of quality or commitment to locally-sourced, small-batch production. The same great soup that caught my attention so long ago is the same great soup that Lisa herself shows up every Thursday to deliver for Market Wagon customers.

When I left Husk two years ago to start the online farmers market, Lisa was one of the first vendors on board. She believed in me like I believed in her. And we wouldn’t be here today without amazing products like hers in the market.

Seeing intrepid food vendors like Lisa every week brightens my day, and it’s the kind of entrepreneurial story that we love to be a part of.

As Lisa says, “Every day is a good day for soup.” Order yours now on https://indianapolis.marketwagon.com/collections/vendors?q=Urban+Ladle