Simply Britt’s Gourmet was birthed in my home kitchen, or maybe I should say my mom’s kitchen. My mom has been catering for several years and she makes some of the most wonderful and unique desserts that are just delicious. This gourmet cream & gelatin dessert is one of them. This delicious cream recipe was created by my mom over 20 years ago. She would make them in a very large glass decorative bowl and use them as a center piece on the table with floral and fresh fruit arrangements surrounding the bottom. I worked along with her and also enjoyed cooking and putting an artistic touch to make them.

Being a stay at home mom, I was very active in my church fundraising department for the Young People’s Department. In telling the children to always put God first and believe in yourself you can achieve that “Great American Dream”. I was always trying to create ways to teach the children to have that entrepreneurial spirit and create a source of revenue for our activities.

That’s when we decided to open The Café after Sunday morning service. We sold quick pick-me-up items such as hot dogs, sodas, chips and other items that people could take on the run. This is when the gelatin & gourmet cream dessert was introduced in small packaging.

Realizing that the members at my church loved this dessert, I got the idea of putting it in small individual packaging. Because of the fruitful colors, the product had to be in a pretty clear container so that you could see the layers. I went to one of our local supermarkets with $35.00 and purchased some of the clear salad containers and the ingredients needed and began experimenting with small batches of gelatin and our gourmet cream. I took them to church and behold they were a huge success! From this I began to take them every week, starting out with 10 to 15 units, it increased to 25 to 35 and if there was an event or special service, the numbers would increase drastically. I became very excited about this and began to do some research as to how I could market this. Of course everyone thought I was a little crazy but I didn’t care. They would say, oh boy here she goes again! Yeah, here I go again. I always had some kind of idea to raise money for the kids. But this was not as other things, this had an even greater potential. There were other desserts my mom made but this for some reason was really in my spirit and I didn’t want to give it up.

Working with people in the food industry, I had to work on intensifying the flavors, packaging, shelf life, labeling etc. it was a challenge but I was up for it.
After working on this project, selling at church, and people that were in my circle, I wanted to take this to another level. In doing all this, I had to give it a name! It was pretty easy because through it all my children were always there so I named it after my daughter Brittney Marie. I also have a production company that does theatrical shows which is named after my son Justin. It’s called Jus-Kids Productions.

I began working on some marketing strategies. With no funds, I made of my own survey and people that I knew that had corporate jobs with 25 people or more, would take about 10 8oz. parfaits to work with them and sell them for a dollar and each person would fill out a survey and tell me what they thought. People that knew me and my product loved it but I wanted to see if it was marketable out side my circle. I also took samples to some local deli’s and they loved it and agreed to sell it.

The response was overwhelming. I got over 5,000 surveys returned and the verdict was in... it was a hit! My children were young so I worked on this on a small scale selling to McCarter & English, Elizabeth General, University Hospital, Max’s Café, Town Hall Deli, and Ashland School.

As the children grew I realized that this could really be big! Again doing my own research, looking at a small picture I said to my self, Loretta what do you want to do with this? It was time once again to take it to another level. Again I had a great marketing strategy but basically had no money. I wanted to go public or retail with the product so I was introduced to a gentlemen who had a product that he sold in the mall on a kiosk and he said to me why not try this in the mall. He introduced me to the Specialty Leasing Manager at the Woodbridge Mall and 6 months later, March 15, 2000, I opened my first retail location in Woodbridge Mall. Renting kitchen space from the Clinton Manor, which was a banquet facility I was able to produce more product to supply the mall. This was a good thing because I did not have to commit myself to a full years lease I could do month to month to see how this would work. I signed a lease for 3 months and ended up staying for a year. Out growing the kitchen space that I was in, it was time to look for my own. But as I was looking for a building the kitchen I was using closed down and I had to go back to my home.

Trying to secure funding for my own facility was a very big challenge because I was a small business with no money and a small track record that was just okay to some people but I had a dream and I was determined not to let it die. When my children were little one of the scriptures they quoted so frequently was “Philippians 4:13, which reads, I can do all things through Christ which strengthens me.” I knew that I did not have any money and did not meet the requirements to secure this kind of money, but I had to stand on Gods word that He would give me the desires of my heart if I delighted my self in Him and He would give me the strength to do this. It took me 9 months but I was able to secure a loan to purchase a building and build a commercial kitchen for the product. My Bishop, the Dr. Milton A. Hobbs and at the time the Co-Pastor Aron Hobbs, who is now the Pastor, heard what I was trying to do and the church owned a building two doors down from the sanctuary and they offered it to me! The monies that I secured was not enough to purchase the building do all of the construction and buy the equipment but again I had to stand on God’s word. It took me a year and a half to build the kitchen but I did it. I now have a state of the art kitchen with all equipment and we are up and running!

I have just secured one of the major supermarkets here in New Jersey, The Village Supermarket Shop-Rites, and I am currently working on several other venues for our Gourmet Parfait!

I have taken an old product and given it a new kick! Creating a new and wonderful product.

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