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In 1998, Eleanor Smith put away her Wharton Business School MBA, hung up her business suit, and waved goodbye to the world of high finance for the last time. She went home, put on an apron, and got busy building her new company. Thus, El's Kitchen was born.
A longtime culinary devotee, El had always unwound by cooking, and creating simple, healthy meals for her four young children was a task she relished. To add maximum flavor to her dishes, she created unique spice blends. Soon, her neighbors and friends were hooked along with her family. Today, the spice mixtures are making a splash throughout the northeast. Forty Whole Foods stores carry all six of El's Rubs, as do many independent grocers and specialty stores.
It took perseverance and a new way of looking at marketing to get the Weston-based company off the ground. Working around her children's increasingly busy schedules, El found that the best way to market her product was by going door to door, store to store, selling her wares from the back of her car after leaving her kids at school. "This was really difficult selling something I made myself and was so emotionally vested in. Promoting myself doesn't come naturally, and I had to work really hard to keep pushing myself," she says now. Her grassroots approach worked, and to this day El still believes the personal approach is her best sales method. "I work hard to know each store and how best to make my rubs appeal to them before I ever talk to the manager or the butcher." She still calls every potential customer herself and offers to deliver samples or hold demonstrations on their premises.
Locally, you'll find El's Rubs for chicken, fish, lamb and beef at Palmer's, Stewart's and Caraluzzi's and at some of the local farmers' markets. They can also be purchased through her website.
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