Peg’s Salt Has Savory Prospects

By Kathy Johnson

Cass Cannon is an entrepreneur. She’s followed her heart—plus gone into a lot of research and training—to start her own new business, “Peg’s Salt.”

Peg, Cass’s mother, held a closely guarded family secret, a “secret herb combination” that she used on most everything she cooked.

“I was moving from Ohio to Virginia and I wanted to make it for myself,” said Cannon. “And I wanted to be able to carry on and share it. She had some health issues. So I said, ‘Mom, you need to write this down.’ She did and that was sort of the start. I was just so grateful.”

“I’d been giving it to some friends and when they would run out they would give me a call. They just called it ‘the salt.’ So, people were telling me how great it is, and ‘you should sell this,’ and I just got to thinking about it.”

She was working as a community relations specialist for Charlottesville City Public Schools at the time and had marketing experience.

She learned about what she was getting into before jumping off the new business cliff. “A year ago I went to SCORE,” a nonprofit association of volunteer business counselors throughout the U.S. with offices in Waynesboro and Charlottesville. Then she filled out the incorporation papers online. “Doing Peg’s Salt was like a no brainer,” Cannon said.

Choosing the name was the first thing. “Magic Salt” was one possibility. There was some push back from family on “Peg’s Salt” because of the apostrophe, she said, “but when I started taking it seriously, it had to be Peg’s Salt.

“Then I started thinking about logos. What would Peg’s Salt look like?” Cannon said she always associated it with home cooking and ’70s time-period colors like avocado green and cerulean blue. Graphic design artist Mike Uriss completed the logo design. Cannon next worked on the labeling and the jars. Finally, in December she quit her job and went full-time with Peg’s Salt.

Small Business Administration statistics paint an improving picture for start-ups. About two-thirds of new businesses now last past their first two years. Preparation through research, talking to SCORE, and taking business classes can improve a new business’s likelihood of survival. Having a business plan that includes profit and loss forecasting, a balance sheet, and a cash flow analysis is critical to success.

“SCORE classes provided me with a book and template for my business plan,” said Cannon. “My weakness is in the financials, so in December I enrolled at PVCC in their online ‘Accounting Fundamentals.’ And that was a godsend, although I’ve got to tell you that by Chapter Two I was just about ready to throw the computer out the window. But they have online support. I just had to tell myself, ‘you are going to learn this.’ All double entry.”

After that, she signed up for the Charlottesville Community Investment Collaborative’s four-month entrepreneurship-training program, designed to equip aspiring and existing entrepreneurs with the knowledge and tools needed in the marketplace. “Sixteen weeks and then you graduate and they provide a mentor to help you along. There are about 25 people in the class. Some have been in business for a long time but want to move it to the next level, and some are still thinking about what they want to do.”

Cannon hosted her “official launch party” in October with catered food with Peg’s Salt in everything. She sold a lot of salt. “I didn’t cover my party costs, but it created awareness of what it is,” she said.

Peg’s Salt is classified as dry goods but before she could start packing up jars there were zoning issues and health department requirements to satisfy. “If you’re doing something in the kitchen, the health department has to come approve it and the zoning has to be approved. It’s neither fast, easy or inexpensive. You can’t just start to throw your food together willy-nilly. I really appreciate all this, but organizing my production around all that was really nuts. Alex Montiel with La Cocina Del Sol was kind enough to let me use his kitchen while I was figuring all this out because it was sort of a chicken and egg thing. You don’t want to invest all this money until you know it’s going to work, but you can’t make the salt until you get the approval, so I was kind of in this netherland.” Cannon’s kitchen has been completed and passed inspection.

Through networking at Darden Graduate School of Business, Cannon has met other entrepreneurs and one of them, Chris Moehle, has helped her get Peg’s Salt into local stores and business is taking off. Some of her sales are online, including six jars sent to Taiwan as a result of someone’s mentioning Peg’s Salt in a blog. So she’s already gone global.

Peg’s Salt can be found at Crozet Great Valu, in Greenwood at Greenwood Gourmet Grocery and Rockfish Gap Country Store, and in Charlottesville at Anderson Carriage Food House, Integral Yoga Natural Foods, Circa, Relay Foods, Wine Made Simple, and The Virginia Shop.