Eat Your Flowers – Baked Goods
DEAL
EPISODE SUMMARY
🕓 Air Date: March 3, 2023
Asking For:
$250,000 for 12%
Investor:
Barbara Corcoran
Deal:
$250,000 for 15%
PRODUCT SUMMARY
Eat Your Flowers creates bespoke, hand-decorated treats with edible botanicals, making beautiful and delicious desserts, cookies, key lime pies, and more using nature as their color palette.
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Background Story
Loria Stern, the founder of Eat Your Flowers, hails from Ojai, California, and has a background as a nationally-ranked tennis player. Despite her initial career in tennis, she discovered her passion for cooking and baking while preparing meals for tennis pros at a local club.
This newfound passion led her to pursue a culinary career, eventually establishing a successful baking company with a staff of bakers. Her creations garnered widespread attention and were featured in top publications like Vogue, Oprah magazine, New York Times, and more, causing her business to flourish.
The Product
Eat Your Flowers specializes in handcrafted desserts adorned with edible botanicals, such as calendula, marigolds, and chamomile, creating a stunning fusion of art and flavor.
Their product range includes signature flower-pressed shortbread cookies, vegan and gluten-free cookies naturally dyed and flavored with plant pigments, and vegan, gluten-free, and naturally colored blue crackers featuring butterfly blue pea flowers.
These products are available online and cater to direct-to-consumer sales. A box of cookies is priced at $50, with a production cost of $7.50. Loria Stern envisions expanding the product line to create items with a more accessible price point, targeting broader markets, such as retail stores like Whole Foods.
How It Went
The company’s position before Shark Tank
Eat Your Flowers has experienced impressive growth with overall lifetime sales reaching $2.2 million, including sales of over $750,000 in 2021. The company operates mainly through direct-to-consumer online sales. While the business is highly profitable, the $250,000 sought in the deal is intended for scaling the company and expanding product offerings, including entering the retail market.
The company has received significant media attention, with features in renowned publications like Vogue and Oprah magazine. Eat Your Flowers has also attracted the interest of Barbara Corcoran, who made an offer of $250,000 for a 15% stake in the business.
The Negotiations:
In the Shark Tank episode, Loria Stern sought $250,000 for a 12% stake in her company, Eat Your Flowers. She presented impressive sales figures and a unique, high-end product. The Sharks were intrigued by her story and the premium nature of her offerings. Kevin O’Leary made the first offer, proposing $250,000 for a substantial 25% stake in the business, emphasizing that maintaining the premium quality was essential. However, he assured Loria that his offer was good news.
Barbara Corcoran was next to make an offer, offering the full amount of $250,000 for a 15% stake. She expressed her desire to be valuable and helpful to the company, as she believed Loria needed a mentor. Loria enthusiastically accepted Barbara’s offer, leading to a deal between the two.
The other Sharks, Mark Cuban, Lori Greiner, and Robert Herjavec, all praised Loria’s achievements but ultimately decided not to invest due to various reasons, such as concerns about the scalability of the business or not seeing themselves as the right fit for the company. Loria was thrilled to secure a partnership with Barbara Corcoran, who recognized her ambition and valued the opportunity to contribute to Eat Your Flowers’ continued growth.
