"Cinnamon is the most popular flavor at Heinen's, and original is the most popular at Zagara's in Cleveland Heights," Ethan Holmes said, pushing some samples across the table. "Try both."
CLEVELAND, Ohio -- When Ethan Holmes was an aspiring entrepreneur at Shaker Heights High School, trying to perfect his grandfather's recipe for Holmes Mouthwatering Applesauce, his friends would ask: "So, what'd you get for Christmas?"
"Oh, apples," he would reply.
"Like the computers?" they would marvel.
"No. Like the fruit," Holmes would tell them, grinning.
It was true. The lanky teen spent every penny of his Christmas and birthday money buying apples, pears, peelers, jars, whatever he needed to churn out and taste more applesauce.
Ethan Holmes, 21, makes and bottles his own all-natural, no-sugar-added Holmes Mouthwatering Applesauce based on his grandfather's recipe. His goal is to make healthier foods accessible to everyone who wants them, and is donating 10 percent of the profits from each jar to efforts to fight childhood obesity."To me, it's more about the entrepreneurship than the money," Holmes said of his growing applesauce business, now sold in more than 25 stores. With 10 percent of his profits going to efforts to fight childhood obesity and promote better nutrition, "I just want to help change the world one apple at a time, to just make it easier for healthy products to be accessible to everyone," he said.
Now 21, Holmes is a sophomore at Hiram College, and spends all his weekends cooking, bottling, demonstrating and selling his all-natural, made-from-scratch, no-sugar-added applesauce. A 16-ounce jar sells for $4.99.
"Cinnamon is the most popular flavor at Heinen's, and original is the most popular at Zagara's in Cleveland Heights," he said, pushing some samples across the table. "Try both."
Holmes got the bug to start his own business at 15, after his godmother gave him Farrah Gray's book "Reallionaire: Nine Steps to Becoming Rich from the Inside Out." After meeting Gray at a speech in Columbus, Ethan was so inspired he developed his own NomNom chocolate bars, wore a suit to school and stood in the cafeteria trying to sell them to his classmates. He sold five bars and made $10.
A week later he switched to applesauce, inspired by the technique his grandfather had taught him, and the fact that there didn't seem to be many homemade-tasting applesauces in the supermarket. Better-known brands of applesauce aren't all natural and are loaded with added sugar, he said.
"I spent six months to a year in the kitchen just messing around," he said. He experimented with different apples and pears before picking Golden Delicious apples and Bartlett pears -- sourced from Ohio orchards whenever possible -- sweetened only with jugs of apple cider from Patterson's Fruit Farm in Chesterland.
When asked why he didn't consider using a tarter apple, Holmes simply shrugged, "I don't like tart apples."
A local artist donated the design for his bottle labels and business cards. And with help from Sam Adams' Brewing the American Dream program for small businesses, some state-of-the-art space in the Cleveland Culinary Launch & Kitchen, and classmates and family members who volunteered to peel, core, wash and cook down the apples, Holmes got the opportunity to bottle his dream.
During a recent marathon applesauce-making session, students at Jane Addams Business Careers High School in Cleveland helped him make hundreds of jars. But he would still prefer to cut down his production time. He's talking to someone who is offering to peel, core and cut up his apples and pears for him, so all he would have to do is 'sauce them.
"That's my goal: So instead of being in the kitchen for six hours on a Saturday, I'm in there for two," he said.
Ethan Holmes, 21, pours a jug of Patterson's apple cider into a huge batch of simmering Golden Delicious apples at the Cleveland Culinary Kitchen to make more Holmes Mouthwatering Applesauce. Zagara's Marketplace has carried Holmes Mouthwatering Applesauce since August. "We're always open to trying local products, and this is an applesauce 'made by kids for kids,'" said Jerry Thompson, Zagara's store manager, referring to the product's slogan. "It sells relatively well, and as far as its quality, it's probably a little better" than some of the national brands.
Last October, a buyer from Heinen's Fine Foods called to order 90 cases of a dozen jars each. Holmes panicked, because it was a huge order compared to the half-dozen cases he'd been making for Zagara's every week.
But with encouragement from mentors, Holmes called his suppliers and convinced them to send him what he needed on credit, promising to pay them after the Heinen's order was delivered. It worked, and he paid every one of them in full before drawing his own salary.
Every time Holmes tells his story and offers customers samples in the supermarket, he sells out of both the jars on the shelf and the ones he brought with him.
Holmes just got word from Marc's that it will carry his applesauce in select stores, with the possibility for additional orders if they sell well. The store's representative told him that Marc Glassman personally tasted and liked his applesauce.
He has also sent samples to Giant Eagle's Market District and to Whole Foods. He is counting on them to help him reach his goal of selling Holmes Applesauce throughout Ohio by this summer.
Because of Heinen's stores in Greater Chicago, Holmes is also building a following for his applesauce there. And when his elder brother, Armand, 23, graduates from Lake Forest College this year, he plans to help the company expand into Chicagoland. He is also getting business advice from his cousin, Samuel Wright, an officer at Huntington Bank.
"I want to hit the West Coast by next year," Holmes said.
Adam Fleischer, owner of The Wine Spot in Cleveland Heights, at 2271 Lee Road, is known as an East Side location for people who want to try what's coming out of the Cleveland Culinary Launch & Kitchen.
"Last summer, we met this young kid -- and I give him a lot of credit; I didn't have his kind of drive at his age," Fleischer said. "He's really focused on the best product available. It's very clean-tasting, and he does a cinnamon, too. He's a great guy, and we wanted to support him. He's going to be very successful."
Chef Anna Harouvis of Good to Go Cafe, at 1360 East 9th St., agreed.
"I think any product that is a natural product, made by kids for kids, how can you not want to get involved in that?" she asked. "It's everything I believe in. I use it in some of my dishes as an alternative to fat."
"When I wanted to go out and start Anna in the Raw" juice cleanse and vegan restaurant, Fahrenheit Chef Rocco Whalen, Greenhouse Tavern Chef Jonathan Sawyer, and Hodges Chef Chris Hodgson all told her: "'Just do it,'so I always said if I ever had the opportunity to help someone just coming up, I would do it."
"He's got a great product. He's just got to stick with it," Harouvis said. "You've got to want it so bad that people see it in your eyes."