What's in a Name

I know, I know, I'm just making things confusing. Perhaps these thoughts can help straighten things out.

Galley Goodies was the beginning. I started the home bakery business about six years ago. It was started in an apartment kitchen. That is how I came up with the name, tiny kitchen and creating goodies, plus I love boats! 

I had sworn to myself that I was just going to do sweets, not bread. However, the people, you people, wanted bread. So, I began recipe testing. It took what felt like eternity and lots of money on ingredients later, I had a decent recipe. 

Even being the shy awkward girl that I am, I went door to door to local businesses to try to get my products on their shelves. Of course, this was before I knew that my food cost was way too high to really have a good profit margin doing wholesale. But everyone was like, do wholesale that's where you can make money, etc. Too bad they didn't do the math on my profit margin either. Don't get me wrong, it was a great learning experience and I made some awesome connections along the way. And for the right people, I would do it again.

After two apartment kitchens later, we finally found our first "forever" house with the most amazing kitchen. I was able to develop new and improved menu items and be a part of many great farmers markets. 

After a couple of years my creativity could not contain itself anymore. I needed more than what I was able to do in a home licensed kitchen. I originally wanted a brick and mortar restaurant, but after looking at different spaces and crunching some numbers, there was just no way. We didn't have the money or man power to do something like that. So, I went back to the drawing board. That's where I learned about food trucks. Well, let's be honest, I didn't learn about food trucks until I actually owned one.

We went all the way to middle of nowhere Vermont in the dead of winter to pick up a truck that was the perfect size for just me. Of course, it was a disgusting mess when we picked it up. Note to anyone, anytime you are buying a for sale by owner anything, make sure they clean it up before you have to deal with it. Lesson learned! 

Here's where Heard Food Truck came to be. I didn't want to confuse the bakery part of things with the food truck. I was not going to be a bakery truck, so I thought it would be easier for people to have a new name. It worked for the most part, but being an one women operation, running two businesses was too much. So, I did want any logic person would do, I combined the businesses and created Heard Food Company. 

So, it didn't dawn on my until after we got asked a few times, that not everyone knows what Heard means. If you work in a kitchen, it's a no brainer, but for most people its not. I was let down by my own mind. (Heard is a phrase used by line cooks after an executive chef calls out a ticket order. It means they "heard" the order and will begin cooking it. Clever, right?!

Any-who... After a too long of a break for me, we are finally able to restart my business. And of course, I'm thinking of the bigger picture. Here comes the last and final name: Anchor ME Farm. We will be a bakery, farm, food truck and eventually a nonprofit (more on that later). The name basically says it all. We will now and forever be anchored in ME (Maine) and it's a farm.