Good Neighbor Podcast: Tri-Cities
Bringing together local businesses and neighbor of Tri-Cities. Good Neighbor Podcast hosted by Skip Mauney helps residents discover and connect with your local business owners in and around Tri-Cities, Tennessee.
Is your business serving the residents of Tri-Cities? Then, we need to talk! Visit gnpTri-Cities.com to schedule your free interview.
Good Neighbor Podcast: Tri-Cities
EP# 45: Transforming Hardships into Sweet Success: Jessica Edminsten's Journey with The Syrup Shop and Natural Wellness
What makes Jessica Edminsten with The Syrup Shop a good neighbor?
What if you could find relief from allergies and boost your immune system naturally? Jessica Edmisten, known as the Syrup Lady, shares her inspiring journey of transforming personal hardships into a successful venture with the Syrup Shop in Johnson City. Founded in 2019, Jessica's business specializes in natural immune support and allergy relief syrups, with a strong emphasis on elderberry syrup. She candidly discusses overcoming initial customer misconceptions, financial hurdles, and personal struggles, including a challenging divorce, to establish a thriving business that offers alternatives to traditional over-the-counter medicines.
Discover the surprising benefits of staghorn sumac berry syrup, which emerged from a friend's recommendation and dramatically improved Jessica’s severe allergy symptoms. This breakthrough not only led to the launch of her brick-and-mortar store but also paved the way for the expansion of her products to over 40 retailers, despite the challenges posed by the pandemic. Jessica opens up about her dedication to maintaining high product standards, her love for outdoor activities, and the importance of community engagement. Tune in to this episode filled with entrepreneurial spirit, resilience, and a passion for natural wellness.
To learn more about The Syrup Shop go to:
The Syrup Shop
(423) 773-6599
This is the Good Neighbor Podcast, the place where local businesses and neighbors come together. Here's your host, Skip Monning.
Speaker 2:Well, hello everyone and welcome to the Good Neighbor Podcast. We have a very special and unique guest with us today. It's my pleasure to introduce your neighbor, Ms Jessica Edmonston, who is the owner and operator of the syrup shop of Johnson City. She's also known as the Syrup Lady. Jessica, welcome to the show.
Speaker 3:Thank you very much.
Speaker 2:I know you've got a very unique business and I've had multiple people tell me about you, so I'm really excited I'm sure our listeners are too to hear more about it and to hear you tell us more about your company, would you?
Speaker 3:Absolutely yeah. So we have a small business in Johnson City. We started in 2019. It is called the Syrup Shop. I get lots of questions like oh, what kind of pancake syrup do you sell? We are not a pancake syrup company. We actually make and manufacture immune system support. We have some natural allergy blends. When I started this business and I started doing research, I learned that you know elderberry syrup it's just been called that for many, many years. So we just went with it and when it was time to open up a business, I was like oh, let's call it the syrup shop. So it's been a little confusing, but we're doing well to educate our community and our customer base. So, yeah, we've been in business since 2019.
Speaker 2:2019. Very good, so no blueberry syrup or maple or anything like that Not anymore.
Speaker 3:When I first started, actually, we tried to pull syrup in, which was really interesting. We were trying to pull, you know, pancake syrup in and I'd do a strawberry blend or I'd do like a seasonal blend, and we just didn't have the customer base that wanted that.
Speaker 3:Most of our customers that come to us they're looking for a natural alternative to an over-the-counter medicine. They're looking for something to help them feel good or combat an illness that they have. So if it's cold and flu, if it's prevention of cold and flu, we saw a huge spike in our customer base and in the results of our products during the pandemic. But we also really we have an amazing allergy and sinus blend, which we're kind of in seasonal allergies in Northeast Tennessee. So we have a couple of blends that are just really amazing at helping relieve the symptoms of allergies. But they're all natural. So we have a lot of people that just like that, they're looking for alternatives, and so that's what we're able to provide. And we weren't selling the syrup, so I have a big, huge supply of syrup at my, at my location.
Speaker 3:Yeah, so it's more of a more of a holistic, health based kind of product rather than products. We would almost call it a juice. So I have a bottle here and it's just it's not thick like a syrup. A lot of products that you buy in the store are going to be thick they have. I just was looking at several on the shelf in like Walmart or Walgreens or CVS. One of the number one ingredients in those is corn syrup, and corn syrup is actually not what you want when you're sick and so that provides the thick consistency. Or they're doing a glycerin base which is going to be really sweet and hard to. It's hard to palate in my personal opinion. So we make our product. It's more like a juice. This is actually a ready-made syrup that is shot a day, you know, and we have adults and kids that love this product. It's not overly sweet, it's not thick like a syrup, so I don't really know why we call it the syrup. That's what we do, you know that's what we are. So there you have it.
Speaker 2:Well, you can always change to the juice shop, but I like the syrup.
Speaker 3:One day, one day.
Speaker 2:That's right. That's right. And just in case you've got syrup, you know that people can come get if they want and get a sugar overdose, which is not what you're about.
Speaker 3:Well, there you go, yeah.
Speaker 2:So you, you, you touched on on how, a little bit on how you got into the business. I don't know if you want to say more about that.
Speaker 3:I can expound on that a little bit. 2018 was just a really tough year for me. I had been coming out of just some personal issues. I was devastated really emotionally, mentally and financially, and I had been praying for some guidance on how to move forward. I have been a stay-at-home mom for many years and part of my problem of 2018 was going through a divorce and so I was forced into working again, and that can be really devastating for women, especially when we've given up our career to stay at home with our kids.
Speaker 3:So a friend actually introduced me to elder I should say, reintroduced me to elderberry syrup. We growing up, my dad is a chiropractor and he just taught us about alternative health. We were one to take a vitamin before we went to the doctor, and so it was familiar to me and I had a friend reach out and she said hey, you know, it was actually a gentleman. He was sharing his homemade elderberry syrup with me and I just suggested that he should sell it and he really wasn't interested. And I was going through such a tough, challenging time that I decided to see what happened, and so, in January of 2019, I started. I just put a post on. The funny story about this is I didn't even know how to make it. I didn't have a recipe, I didn't have ingredients, I just I just put it out there I am making elderberry syrup and I was shocked sold 24 bottles in about 20 minutes, and so I knew something to that. So I spent the weekend learning how to make elderberry syrup and I had people that would come pick up at my, at my porch, and it really was a beautiful time of just introduction in our community. I had people that would come pick up at my porch and it really was a beautiful time of just introduction in our community. I think people were open to alternatives and you know January and February is cold and flu season, so that was a really great time to start this business. And you know, we get through cold and flu season, Everything's good, and I used to get two sinus infections a year. I would always get one in the spring and I would get one in the fall. Northeast Tennessee is no joke with the pollen and the hay and I mean it's intense here, and so we had made through cold and flu season without any issues.
Speaker 3:So I thought there had to be something for the allergy issues that I was having. I talked to a friend who was a herbalist and she said have you ever heard of the sumac berry? Well, as far as I knew, sumac was poisonous. So I wasn't interested in that, as you can imagine. And she said no, no, no, there's a herb, that's a, it's a food, that's the staghorn sumac berry. You should check it out. And she was just telling me of all the great benefits and how you know, if people really knew the medicinal benefits of sumac that she would be selling out. And this was an herbal shop.
Speaker 3:So I took some sumac home and I tried this weird concoction and it worked. And I was with some friends and I was drinking this syrup, if you will. And they're saying how are you? You're like cleared up, You're totally clear. You were congested and runny nose and my eyes were puffy and watering. My eyes were watering, I was sneezing like crazy. I would drink this syrup. It was like I was taking two gulps every couple hours and I having no symptoms at all. And so after doing that I was like, huh, there must be something to this.
Speaker 3:So I reached out to my customer base here in Johnson City and had some customers try it and they were blown away at the benefits and how quickly it was working. And it's all natural. You know, over the counter stuff you get the jitters, it keeps you up, it makes you drowsy, there's tons of side effects, not to mention what's in those products and so we created a product. It's a pink sumac syrup, another syrup that just really is all natural, going to boost the upper respiratory system and help dry you out If you have pressure headaches or ear congestion or just that running runny nose, runny eyes. It's amazing so and it's all natural. So that was kind of we started with Sumac and that really went well.
Speaker 3:And we opened our first brick and mortar towards the end of 2019, which was really cool. I actually opened that to become I wanted to get. Integrity was very important to me, so I was ready to take the next steps. But I didn't know what the next steps were. And so we opened the brick and mortar in 2019 and it had a little commercial kitchen in it and I was like, oh, we're going to make product here and our customers were like, can we come there and pick up product? And so it turned into a store and we were there through 2020 when the pandemic hit, which was really hard. It was hard on small businesses, you know, especially having just started, but it was a huge blessing for us.
Speaker 3:It allowed us to go through the process and learn about what it would take to be certified with the Department of Agriculture, which, in the state of Tennessee, was the next steps for us. So you know, we can make a product in our home and actually people, because of the cottage law in Tennessee, you can still make product in your home, but I don't know if you can see where she's moved, but I have a cat and so I don't think people are thinking about pets and you can clean your house super clean, but you still may have some of that dander or some issues or challenges. So, being in a commercial kitchen, the next step was let's learn how to get certified with Department of Agriculture. So we worked with UT, their food and science department, to get our recipe perfected and to get the process perfected, and then we submitted with the Department of Agriculture in 21 and we got certified and that was awesome. So that allowed us to be able to continue on our path and journey of integrity and give you a great product and know that we have really rigorous steps that we have to take to make the product and to ensure that you're not going to get sick with this product. And so the make it home mom and pop shops I think they're great for a season, but you know there's things that can happen with those, and that was that was important to me.
Speaker 3:So we got certified and then we've had a storefront since 20 gosh 2019, but we just closed our storefront and we're just really focusing on our local community. We set up a farmer's markets vendor and we're really trying to push our online presence. That's the JCSrubShopcom for those of you that want to know. But we're doing some shipping again. You know it's been kind of a slow, slow, sustainable growth for us, so we haven't done anything super fast or super hard. You know, getting certified was big for shipping. You have to be certified in Tennessee to be able to ship products, so and we have 30 plus I mean we have probably close to 40 retailers over the region. So we go to Abington, Bristol, Kingsport, we're in Greenville, Tennessee, Knoxville, and so we were able to spread our community availability, if you will, and we work with amazing retail partners just small business owners and they've been so supportive and wonderful in just allowing us an opportunity to be in their store.
Speaker 2:So it's been a lot of fun.
Speaker 3:Yeah, it's been great. Well you sold me.
Speaker 2:Outside of work. What do you do for fun?
Speaker 3:Well, I have four kids. So I have a daughter in Nashville so I visit her quite a bit and I love her to death. And I have a son that is going to UT. This is his first year there, so I've been to Knoxville. We do the Knoxville Farmer's Market a lot, so going there and seeing him is easy now. But my other two one is a golfer, so we love to play golf. We spend a lot of time on the lake and just outdoors. I mean, we live in a beautiful area here for outdoor activities, so that's, that's kind of what I do Mom and try to have some fun with that.
Speaker 2:There you go, there you go. So if you could, if, jessica, if you could think of one thing that you would like our listeners to remember about the syrup shop, what would that be?
Speaker 3:Oh gosh. One thing I think that the important thing for me is health is wealth. If you have your health and, as a mom, our goal is to raise our kids Teaching them about healthy alternatives is so important. I teach my kids all the time the importance of eating healthy, drinking lots of water, boosting your immune system I think that you would have an awesome long life. And what I've seen and that's really interesting with my daughter you know she didn't love to eat healthy, she didn't love to boost her immune system, but she's now an adult and she's she's remembering all that stuff that I would tell her and she's living a different life than I ever thought she would. But I just I would encourage people to think of the syrup shop is an all natural alternative to over the counter medicines, and we need those now more than ever. And so if you're looking for a product that's certified and is going to provide you amazing support through cold and flu season, think of the syrup shop, or allergy season, which we're kind of in Tennessee.
Speaker 2:Think of the syrup shop.
Speaker 3:Absolutely For sure.
Speaker 2:So how can our listeners learn more about you and the syrup shop? So, we are on social media.
Speaker 3:We're on Facebook, we're on Instagram and we're on Tik TOK, the JC syrup shop. We are also online it's the JC syrup shoprupShop. We are also online it's the JCSyrupShopcom, and we are currently shipping products. I've been really surprised that the cost of shipping hasn't been as high as I thought it would be. We worked really hard to get it to an affordable price because we want to be sure that you can get product at a reasonable cost.
Speaker 3:One other thing is we have make-at-home kits, so if you have a large family, we have some options for you. So I don't want people to feel like they can't use our products because they're too expensive or anything like that. So we do try to work with our customer base and provide amazing products. So that's a little bit more than you asked, but you can find us at the World Wide Web Also. We you set up at the farmer's market, so the farmer's markets in this area go through October and we're in Johnson City, Kingsport, Abington and Knoxville and I really, really love to encourage people to go to the farmer's market because you're going to get more than just syrup. You're going to get amazing again health and wellness. You know a lot of organically grown fruits and vegetables and there's people who are like making product that doesn't have tons of preservatives in it. So be sure to check out and support your local farmers. They need us. They need us to stay in business.
Speaker 2:Absolutely, absolutely Well. Jessica, I know you're busy, you're running a business and your time is precious, so I don't want to take too much of it, but I do want to thank you and let you know how much I appreciate you being on the show. I've learned an awful lot. Like I said, you've sold me. My wife has lots of sinus issues, so we'll be coming to see you soon, absolutely Moving forward. We wish you and the syrup shop and your family, all the best.
Speaker 3:Thank you so much. Thank you to your community. We appreciate it.
Speaker 2:Would love to get you back on the show.
Speaker 1:That sounds great. Thank you for listening to the good neighbor podcast. To nominate your favorite local businesses to be featured on the show, Go to GNP try dash citiescom. That's GNP Try dash citiescom. Or call GNP try-citiescom or call 423-719-5873.