At Centennial College we give students the knowledge and tools to pursue the career path of their dreams, and help create student entrepreneurs like Jordan Kruger. She took our Food Media program and developed an idea for a small business while at school, using what she learned to make it happen.
Jordan now owns and operates The Breakfast Pantry, a place where you can purchase healthy food and other supplies, all geared towards helping you start your day off right, both physically and mentally. And it was something she decided in just ten minutes! Here’s how we helped her make it happen, and what the path from student to entrepreneur looks like.
Good beginnings
“I like to describe The Breakfast Pantry as an online retailer offering a curated selection of products that help people start their days feeling good,” Jordan explains. “It’s a really broad range of products that includes everything from breakfast and pantry products, to health and wellness items, self-care products, home and kitchen accessories – anything you use or visualize in your morning that will help you start your day feeling nourished, calm and relaxed. All of our food products are organic and plant-based. We want our customers to know that when you buy a product from The Breakfast Pantry, you're getting a product that's high quality and filled with clean, nourishing ingredients.”
But, how did she make that a reality? It began with a sudden creative decision under pressure.
A life-changing ten minutes
In Centennial College’s Food Media program, you learn how to bring the culinary arts to a wider audience, through mediums like photography, writing, editing, production and social media, all of which are important when you’re trying to promote a culinary business.
“In one of my classes, we had a project,” Jordan explains. “You had to think of a food business concept. It could be any business in the food industry, whatever you wanted.” In fact, she had to come up with the idea really quickly, as prompted by her instructor.
“Basically, he said, you have ten minutes, write your idea on a piece of paper and we are going to go around the classroom and share our ideas. I literally wrote on the paper: ‘Website for breakfast products’ while freaking out. And then he stood there and read everyone's out, analyzing each idea, giving it a bit of criticism. And he read mine, and went, yeah, love it.” Energized, Jordan’s concept would grow from there, as she’d continue to realistically develop it as a part of her education.
“We spent half the year working on that project, developing a minor business plan, even getting to stages like graphics and what the business would look like. So the idea for The Breakfast Pantry came about as my idea for that school project, then I spent the following semester just putting my all into it, and I just fell in love with the idea. I thought it was something that I could really see myself pursuing after school. I put a lot of work into the project, knowing I was actually doing work that could help me turn this into a career as soon as I graduate. And that's exactly what I did. When I graduated, I spent almost another full year just working full time to bring my school project to life and turn it into a viable business.”
How do you go from student to entrepreneur?
“I graduated knowing I love this idea, and I'm going to now put all my time into creating a business out of it,” Jordan begins. And here’s what creating a business looks like.
“I had a framework, a rough business plan that we had created in the program,” she begins. “So, I first spent a couple weeks really refining that business plan, going into a lot more detail, figuring out the logistics. Can I actually do this? How much is it going to cost to bring this business to life? I really worked hard on the business plan.”
“I luckily had a lot of positive support from my family,” she adds. “They loved the idea and encouraged me to go for it. I was also working part time at a vegan and gluten-free café, so I was surrounded by the food industry and confident that I loved being in that area. But a few months after I graduated school, the cafe unfortunately closed down, so I was out of a job.
“I realized if I spend a few more months working on this full time, and then launch this business, this will be my career,” she says. “So I started building the website myself. I started curating a product selection and reaching out to different brands and suppliers, figuring that all out, and then I turned my parent’s basement into a warehouse. Their whole basement was filled with hundreds of products, stacks and stacks of shipping boxes, everything I needed. And I launched the business about a year after graduating.” And her Centennial College education helped the whole way.
“The Food Media program covered a lot of different areas,” she says. “It was super interesting getting to learn from a range of industry professionals. All my teachers specialized in a different area of the food industry, so I really valued their opinions. Hearing from them gave me a lot of practical experience that I was able to take with me into my career.”
What it’s like running a business
“The most challenging part has definitely been doing the role of about 20 people,” Jordan says about her life as an entrepreneur. “It feels like, most days, I'm doing everything from running the website, photography, social media, bookkeeping and so much more. I can feel very overwhelmed. Luckily, I have help now, and my mom has always helped from the start.”
“I’m finding now as I get more help, it's really challenging for me to let go of responsibility, and learn to delegate and trust people to do stuff,” she admits, “because I’ve been doing almost all of it for so long. It's scary trusting someone else to help you run your business. That's definitely something I've been working through, learning to delegate and let go.”
“The most rewarding part has definitely been the customer feedback,” she says. “We have such sweet customers. I always get really nice emails from them, and messages on our social media telling us how much they love our products and how much they love our story. As soon as I get a customer message, it puts the biggest smile on my face.”
Interested in being an entrepreneur?
Here’s what Jordan has to say about her career path, and those who might want to follow her.
“My biggest piece of advice is not to be afraid to follow an idea or a passion,” she says. “It can be really scary, you might fear that other people are going to judge you, not understand the idea or not see it in the same light that you do. But if you're really passionate, you should follow that idea and not be afraid to ask for help along the way.”
“I’d sometimes get embarrassed to ask people questions,” she says. “But people are super willing to help you. People want to help you succeed. And I think you need to leverage the resources you have, and the connections. In school, I met all these amazing professors that were so happy to help me along the way when I had questions. So don't be afraid to reach out for help.”
“I love talking with fellow entrepreneurs and being able to help one another,” she says. “So if there's any other students on the same path as me, whether they are looking to become an entrepreneur after school, or they already have and want to chat about that, I love sharing stories, listening and learning from other entrepreneurs.”
In addition to its homepage, you can follow The Breakfast Pantry on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/breakfastpantry/ and on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/breakfastpantry/
Written by: Anthony Geremia