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PEANUT BUTTER CRAZY
 

Why would an electrical engineering graduate trade a great job for a career in peanut butter? In a nutshell, to run her own business.

Jodene Jensen says she always had an entrepreneurial spirit. It just took some time to find the courage to exercise it. That’s why, after earning a BS from Iowa State in 1989, she took a more traditional route and accepted an engineering job at 3M in St. Paul, Minnesota. It was work she enjoyed, but not something she wanted to do forever. She later combined work with night classes at William Mitchell College of Law, thus pursuing another dream—earning a law degree.

Jensen clerked for a federal judge for two years before accepting a position with a Twin Cities firm, where she specialized in intellectual property law. And even though she loved practicing law, Jensen knew she wouldn’t be truly satisfied until she was running her own company. There was, however, one thing holding her back: she could never convince herself to give up everything and start a business by herself. “It felt like jumping off a cliff,” Jensen explains, “and I wanted somebody to jump with me.”

It didn’t take Jensen long to find a couple friends willing to take the plunge with her. Ken Hall, a lawyer in Jensen’s firm, and Keri Barney also thought starting a business was a great idea. The trio got together for several brainstorming sessions, searching for a business idea they thought would be successful. “We figured if we were going to quit our jobs and throw ourselves into this,” Jensen says, “we wanted something with a lot of potential.”

Yet, at the same time, they wanted something new and exciting.

They talked about franchises that built their menus around a single item, like gourmet coffee or cinnamon rolls. Those types of businesses, Jensen offers, have taken a food or drink that Americans love and given it a twist of some sort, making the products new again.

Eventually, the group came up with an idea that all three were convinced would work: peanut butter.

“Once we hit peanut butter,” Jensen says, “we knew that was it. We did some research and found it was a huge, untapped market, so we quit our jobs and off we went.”

In November 2003, Jensen, Barney, and Hall opened P.B.Loco, a small café serving peanut butter sandwiches, at the Mall of America in Bloomington, Minnesota. Seven different flavors of peanut butter were offered on that first day of business. Since then, choices have grown considerably, and customers can now select their own spreads or request one of 12 signature sandwiches, like the PBBLT, which is a peanut-butter-with-sun-dried-tomato sandwich, topped with bacon bits, cream cheese, and lettuce.

“I didn’t think of that one,” Jensen admits, “but people are surprised by the taste. It’s not what you would expect.”

Great-tasting products have helped the business expand substantially, and now the company even sells its most popular flavors of peanut butter in jars. In addition to the classic creamy and crunchy options, customers can purchase peanut butter mixed with Dutch dark chocolate or creamy white chocolate. There’s also a European café mocha, Sumatra cinnamon and raisin, sun-ripened apricot, and Asian curry spice, among others.

There’s a flavor for almost everyone, Jensen says.

In addition to being on the shelves of many grocery stores in and around the Twin Cities, P.B.Loco products can be found at national food chains. Customers can also buy the company’s products online.

With the expansion, the three owners have moved from taking orders and making sandwiches at the original café to different executive roles. For Jensen, it’s franchise development and sales, which is going well, she says, with two new cafés set to open soon—one in Scottsdale, Arizona, and another in Woodbridge, New Jersey, just outside of New York City.

Jensen confesses that people are surprised when she tells them her undergraduate degree is in electrical engineering. Except for occasionally rewiring a machine that’s on the fritz, Jensen doesn’t do much engineering at work. But that certainly doesn’t mean her background in the field isn’t extremely useful in her day-to-day responsibilities as a business owner.

“Starting and running a business requires good analytical skills,” Jensen explains. “That helps with things like figuring the books and looking at cost structure. When you study engineering, you learn how to think through things and analyze everything, which has helped me tremendously running a business and negotiating with people.”

 

Peanut Butter Facts (courtesy of www.pbloco.com)

Peanut butter is one of America’s favorite foods, and Americans eat more than 800 million pounds of peanut butter each year.

Peanut butter was invented around 1890 as a health food for undernourished patients.

Dr. George Washington Carver, who earned a bachelor’s degree in 1894 and a master’s degree in 1896 from Iowa State, made more than 300 products from peanuts, including a milk substitute, face powder, printer’s ink, and soap.

While Dr. Carver did not invent peanut butter, he so improved peanut horticulture that he is considered by many to be the father of peanut butter.

Three years before his death, Dr. Carver gave his life savings of $33,000 to the Tuskegee Institute. The money was used to establish the George Washington Carver Research Foundation for agricultural research.

November is Peanut Butter Lover’s Month.

The average American child will eat 1,500 peanut butter sandwiches before he or she graduates from high school.

Women and children are more likely to prefer creamy peanut butter, while most men opt for chunky varieties. People on the East Coast tend to prefer creamy peanut butter, while their friends on the West Coast more likely prefer chunky.

“Arachibutyrophobia” is the fear of peanut butter getting stuck to the roof of your mouth.

Americans consume enough peanut butter each year to cover the floor of the Grand Canyon.

Two peanut farmers have been elected president of the United States: Thomas Jefferson and Jimmy Carter.