Today we’d like to introduce you to Chantal Piet.
Chantal, we appreciate you taking the time to share your story with us today. Where does your story begin?
Both me and my boyfriend are born and raised in The Netherlands. When my boyfriend won the Green Card Lottery six years ago, we decided we should take that chance and move to the US! We literally came to Austin with an ‘American Dream’, two suitcases and a stroopwafel iron. We started baking our Dutch national cookie, the stroopwafel, on Farmers Markets and events in Austin, people loved them! When we grew a little more, we worked from a commercial kitchen in Dripping Springs with help from Skull & Cakebones, we still owe part of our existence to these wonderful ladies. When we kept growing, we started working with a copacker, someone with a real production line for stroopwafels. And now, five years later, our stroopwafels are sold all over the US and Canada!
Alright, so let’s dig a little deeper into the story – has it been an easy path overall and if not, what were the challenges you’ve had to overcome?
The road was smooth, even, perfect, flowing… No one ever said who’s building a business, hahaha. My gosh… We had so many tough times! Baking all these stroopwafels by hand, having an entire batch recalled for them not being sealed correctly, throwing your back out, but having to move on, mistakes with partners to work with which cost a fortune, fire in the kitchen, hot pots of stroop throughout the car after a car accident… Gosh, I could write a book about the weird and crazy things that can happen! But you keep on going, sometimes just a smile or a short message from a happy customers lifts you up and keeps you going 😉
Appreciate you sharing that. What should we know about Stroop Club?
Stroopwafels are our National Cookie back home in The Netherlands. We knew Americans love their sweets and that you would definitely love ours! However, we didn’t want to ‘just build a company’, we wanted to do it right, according to our own values. And three core values we have are ‘adventure’, ‘making real connections’ and ‘have the smallest eco-footprint in life as possible’. That’s what makes us different. We don’t only have these values for our business, but we live them… We’re adventurers, we don’t even live in a house! We’re nomads, live where we want to be, with friends in Austin, in our car during road trips, in Europe with our family… We don’t buy stuff, we don’t own anything, we try hard to avoid groceries packed in plastic, don’t eat meat or fish. And we love to truly meet people. We make it a point to contact customers, shops and fans during our trips to actually meet the people behind all of it. What’s life without all the awesome people around us? That’s why we package our stroopwafels with 2 in a package, share a smile!
What has been the most important lesson you’ve learned along your journey?
That there’s always a way and always another day. That we all need to loosen up. That life is not all about money and career, but about the connections you make in it. With yourself, with others close to you, or even far from you. With nature. Just stay true to yourself and keep going 😉
Contact Info:
- Email: eat@stroopclub.com
- Website: https://www.stroopclub.com
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/stroopclub
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/stroopclub
- Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCjPld09mO4pIrRqEiaXii0w
