Brand Autopsy

Food and Wine ... and The Soup Peddler!

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For a refresher course on the Soup Peddler … click here

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Yes … that’s David Ansel, the Soup Peddler, in a lengthy spread from November’s issue of FOOD AND WINE magazine. (Nice to see the Law of Remarkability in action.)

This autumn we find the Soup Peddler in the beginning throes of his fifth soup season. But this year, many things have changed for Brand Autopsy’s favorite jumboSHRIMP Marketing business. Gone is the infamous delivery bike in favor of deliveries by refrigerated trucks. And gone is the single-minded soup menu. In its place is an expanded menu including entrees because as David said in an email to his Soupies,

Soup has definitely been the ticket for this business. So why would I choose to 'water down' the company by expanding the menu?

Well, I looked really long and hard at what we were doing, at what the Soupies were eating, and did a little experimentation, you'll recall, with menu expansion last season. When we offered non-soup items, they were every bit as popular as the soups, which led me to re-evaluate exactly the purpose we were serving in your lives.

It was not about soup, it was about lovingly-made food.

I thought about myself as a Soupie. If I was one, if I was overburdened at work, if I was pretty well stretched out by raising a family, if I couldn't bear to go out to a restaurant for dinner or bring in crappy take-out, well, I'd want more than just soup delivered to my door.

What I find remarkable about the growth of the Soup Peddler is how he continues to get bigger by acting smaller through using three core jumboSHRMP Marketing rules.

(1) Be the Best, Not the Biggest
The Soup Peddler’s kudzu-like growth is 100% organic. The changes he has made to his business are designed merely to meet the increasing bottom-up demand from his devoted customers. Sure, he could easily double, triple, or quadruple sales by going into the wholesale soup business. But the Soup Peddler isn’t interested in going big to get bigger. He’d much rather continue to grow his business by being the best, not the biggest.

(2) Fostering Customer Devotion, Not Customer Loyalty
Loyalty schmoyalty. It takes more than customer loyalty to sell soup to hundreds of Austinites when its 108 degrees outside like it was the second week of the Soup Peddler’s fall soup season … it takes customer devotion.

(3) Local Warming is Good
The Soup Peddler not only warms one’s belly, he also warms the local community. Through his SoupShare Programme, he’s forming win-win relationships with local non-profits and schools. The Soup Peddler has become so intertwined within the fabric of the Austin community that his story is included in the recently opened play, Keepin’ it Weird.

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All this talk about the Soup Peddler is making me hungry for some … soup. Reckon, I’ll have to wait until next week for my Multi-Critter Gumbo and Zimbabwe Peanut Stew to satiate my soup pangs.

UPDATE | The Soup Peddler

The Soup Peddler (David Ansel), a case study in the art of remarkabalizing a business, is currently on summer sabbatical. (When it’s 99 degrees in the badlands of Central Texas, the last thing on your mind is scarfing down a bowl of Bouillabaisse Marseillaise. Dig?) Just because he’s on sabbatical doesn’t mean the Soup Peddler isn’t keeping busy.

He’s updated his blog with humorous tales while on the Canadian soup trail and 10 Speed Press has just published David’s long-simmering book, The Soup Peddler’s Slow & Difficult Soups: Recipes & Reveries.

I leafed through the book while perusing the shelves at BookPeople this week. It’s a fun read recounting the ups/downs of David’s second season dealing with the unwieldy growth and unreal personalities of his Soup Peddler business.

For more on the Soup Peddler, check out previous postings on Brand Autopsy. And for more on The Soup Peddler’s Slow & Difficult Soups: Recipes & Reveries book … read the description below lifted directly from Amazon:

With just a custom-made yellow bike, a used bike trailer, and a few two-quart containers of homemade gumbo, David Ansel began peddling soup to his friends and neighbors in the close-knit community of Bouldin Creek in Austin, Texas. Many flat tires and gallons of soup later, his delivery route has grown from 17 soup subscribers, or "soupies," to more than 700 and counting.

In SLOW AND DIFFICULT SOUPS, Ansel (aka the Soup Peddler) ladles out generous bowlfuls of some of the most delicious and lovingly seasoned soups you’ll ever taste. This heart-and belly-warming illustrated memoir is an offbeat homage to the art, science, and joy of soup, offering a utopian vision of a community brought together through their love of spoon-licking comfort food.

The Soup Peddler shares humorous stories about the eccentric folks who populate Bouldin Creek, along with classic and exotic creations like South Austin Chili, Smoked Tomato Bisque,Chompy-Chomp Black Bean Soup, and Bouillabaisse Marseillaise. A taste of simpler times in our modern fast-food nation, SLOW AND DIFFICULT SOUPS is a rousing reminder of our basic need to connect to our food —and those who cook, deliver, and slurp it.

The Open-Sourcing Soup Peddler???

Hugh pimps a Tailor. I pimp a Soup Maker. (Previous Soup Peddler pimpin’ can be found here and here … as well as a fresh pimp below.)

In a recent blog entry, David Ansel (The Soup Peddler) shares findings from his latest customer survey. The survey asked his Soupies their thoughts on the increasing bigness of the business and if they wanted more than just soup from The Soup Peddler. (Click here to view the survey results.)

David also shares a story about discussing his business with a highly successful Austin restaurateur who admitted being jealous of how much The Soup Peddler brings his Soupies into the business decision-making process.

The Soup Peddler writes …

Thanks to an introduction by someone I am only at liberty to refer to as The Invisible Hand of The Soup Peddler, I gained audience with Bic Brown, owner of Hyde Park Bar & Grill, to discuss the inner workings of my business plan, in order to ferret out any insanities that may lie within.

When I showed him the survey and some of the early responses, he was completely agog with the rarity of the connection that we have with our customers. He envisioned you, the collective Soupie, as a great, throbbing e-brain that could be harnessed to do my bidding.

His suggestion was to just put my business plan up on the website and tell you all to have at it. Just put it up there, go to sleep, and wake up the next morning with the whole damn thing all figured out.

I might just do that.

With the open-source movement gaining more and more momentum, it’ll be interesting to see what develops if the Soup Peddler does indeed open-source his business plan. For the Soup Peddler, it looks like there can never be too many cooks in his kitchen.

Peddling the Soup Peddler

Last June we introduced Brand Autopsy readers to The Soup Peddler.

For the unaware … David Ansel, The Soup Peddler, quit his high-tech job in 2001 to start making homemade soups using seasonal, local, and organic ingredients. Better yet, he delivers his soups to customers in South Austin by bicycle. Yes, bicycle. Hence the name – The Soup Peddler.

The Soup Peddler is very much a case study in the art of being remarkable.

Much has evolved in the life of the Soup Peddler since June. These days David and his team of peddlers and soup makers deliver over 350 gallons of soup every week. He is quickly outgrowing his once seemingly gigantic soup kitchen. And, he is grappling with how to continue growing his company without losing touch with the original mission of the business.

I reckon the curse of being remarkable is dealing with the remarkable growth it brings and dealing with all the media attention it garners. Just in the last few weeks, David has been featured on The Food Network (.mov file), KXAN-TV (real player), News 8 Austin (windows media player), and The Soup Peddler documentary premiered on KLRU-TV.

If all that wasn’t enough, David is now blogging and he recently submitted the manuscript for his Slow and Difficult Recipes Cookbook to be published by Ten Speed Press this Fall. (Click here to read a sample chapter.)

Last month I sat down with David to talk soup, Fela Kuti, and ways he can apply basic JumboShrimp Marketing principles to his business.

JumboShrimp Marketing is all about getting bigger by being smaller and some of the principles we discussed were:

Being the Best, Not the Biggest

Going Beyond Stating a Mission to Living a Mission

Fostering Customer Devotion, Not Customer Loyalty

Appealing to Main Street More than Wall Street

Global Warming Bad, Local Warming Good

High-Touch Over High-Tech

David and I are scheduled to talk again ... so I'll keep y'all informed on how The Soup Peddler will continue getting bigger by being smaller.

The Soup Peddler – A Case Study in the Art of Being Remarkable

“Something remarkable is worth talking about. Worth noticing. Exceptional. New. Interesting.” (From the Purple Cow by Seth Godin.)

David Ansel, The Soup Peddler, quit his high-tech job in 2001 to not only make homemade soups using seasonal, local, and organic ingredients ... he also delivers his soups to customers in South Austin by bicycle.

Yes, bicycle. Hence the name … The Soup Peddler.

For The Soup Peddler, being remarkable is all about great soup, sustainability, slow food, and peddling fast.

To learn more about The Soup Peddler ...

Read this Christian Science Monitor profile from 10.22.03

Skim this Austin Chronicle article from 6.17.04

Visit The Soup Peddler's website to learn about his soupology