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Christmas Special - We present Lyn Fioravanti, who bakes all-natural Italian biscotti and pizzelle, from her family recipes, out of her church kitchen and she gives 10% of her sales to the church!
Apurv Sibal is the host of the podcast “The Product Life,” which explores the world of products and innovation. As a seasoned product manager and entrepreneur, Apurv brings a wealth of knowledge and experience to the show, sharing insights and interviews with industry leaders about the latest trends, challenges, and best practices in product development and selling.
Throughout the podcast, Apurv delves into a variety of topics, including product strategy, design thinking, user research, agile methodologies, and more. He also interviews guests who are experts in their field and have valuable perspective to share on the product development process.
Apurv: welcome to another episode of the product life this is your host Apurv sibal from best views reviews where we give you the unbiased opinion for thousands of categories today we have with us Lyn so thank you so much Lynn for joining us could you tell us a little bit about yourself
Lyn: sure thank you for having me up my name is Lynn fioravanti and um I am a registered dietitian and I've been in the nutrition world for uh 30 years and I recently left that world to start another project and that is making our delicious Italian biscotti and pizzelle
Apurv: got it
Lyn: so I am based in Western Massachusetts in Ludlow and I started this business called Baker's Lane biscotti in 2018.
Apurv: and what made you shift from being a dietitian to starting a biscotti business
Lyn: well my brother my younger brother and I always used to joke that we should start selling our cookies because everyone that we gifted them to absolutely love them and couldn't find them anywhere that tasted like ours so um you know as I got older I kept thinking about it and um it's actually a funny story my church um our church always needs fundraisers and money to keep surviving and they have a beautiful certified kitchen and I thought well if I'm only going to make a couple types of cookies I can't really afford to um rent a space so I brought this idea to my pastor and he loved it so I bake in this beautiful certified kitchen and I get to offer these cookies to the country basically which is wonderful
Apurv: nice and I guess you shared earlier that you give 10 of your sales to the church as well that's really nice
Lyn: yes 10 of all my sales goes back to the church for um it was going to the outreach program but now that times are getting tougher it's going to the general budget to continue the missions of the church and to keep keep the doors open
Apurv: got it so could you tell our listeners like what biscotti is and how do you make them
Lyn: sure so biscotti is an Italian cookie and most people I think know them as the cookie that you dunk in coffee people love to do that and biscotti means twice baked so I bake it in a roll and then I bring it out of the oven and I slice it and then I bake it again so it looks like
Apurv: wow it looks yummy
Lyn: yes so this is our almond biscotti and as you can see it's not you know a foot long and it's not really thick it's this is an authentic biscotti um some of the ones that you buy out they're very large and they're very hot they're like rock hard and people need to dunk them in coffee to actually be able to chew them because they're so hard these are crisp and delicate and wonderful because we make them with butter this is my family recipe I haven't changed the recipe so it's authentic it's delicate and it's delicious so that's our biscotti and we have different ones so that was the almond biscotti I was hoping you could see the almonds in there and then we have Annis biscotti like that sorry what is oh so the anus yeah so anus is like an aniseed for anise extract so that's the flavor that we grew up with the Sicilians my mother's side of the family is from Sicily and anise is that flavor that we flavored the biscotti and our pizzelles jelly is like this it looks like a snowflake so that's the original flavor and some people um might not like that Venice flavor it's sort of like black licorice but mine is very subtle it's not overpowering and I think that's what turns people off if they buy one in the supermarket or in a store it's very strong but but the flavor of of our cookies is is I want to say perfection because it's not overpowering and it's just delicious and the the aroma is wonderful as well and then we also have the the almond chocolate drizzled biscotti and then something you know as so the way they're baked it's baked in a roll and at the End of the Roll are these little pieces when you cut them so it gets smaller at the end of the loaf so I actually call these people eat small in Italian and people can get these I just put as many in the package as I can and it's like a two bite morsel and people love having that with their copy or their tea and this is what the box looks like so these are our pizzelli you can see those and
Apurv: how many do you have in a box
Lyn: and the biscotti so there's a dozen in each box and like I said the little people I just put as many in the box that can fit
Apurv: oh Got it what is the shelf life
Lyn: uh since there's no preservatives they're all natural as long as they're in an airtight container they will stay for two to three weeks and you can freeze them when you take them out of the freezer they taste as good as if they were first baked
Apurv: got it and like you mentioned that people have biscotti with coffee like and do they have pizzelle with coffee as well
Lyn: oh definitely yes and some people actually like them as um after dinner if they don't excuse me like coffee they have it with a after dinner drink like a sweet um wine or a dessert wine and they have their biscotti and their pizzelli with that too
Apurv: got it and do you dip the pizzelle in coffee as well isn't the snowflake ground shape or challenge you could just break it
Lyn: oh yes got it yes and with the pizzelli you can actually um you can sprinkle powdered sugar on it um I do make them in the shape of a cannoli shell so you can fill it with cannoli cream you could also serve it with ice cream
Apurv: it's interesting
Lyn: there's lots of ways you can enjoy them
Apurv: got it and uh so do you sell them locally and on your website is that correct
Lyn: that is correct yes I have a local um delivery and my local following I sell at farmers markets and craft fairs this time of year is wonderful for Holiday festivals and fairs and I do sell them there as well and I do have a website bakerslane biscotti.com and they can be shipped anywhere in the country
Apurv: well that's good to know so um you mentioned that your products are Perfection but like uh did you actually compare other products when you were actually making it or you wanted to just share your family recipe with people so what was the idea behind both
Lyn: actually you know I I have tried some others when I was doing my research for starting the company I did order some both from online websites and out in the community at Italian bakeries even and I just found that they they were to the the flavor if it was an anise flavor it was too overpowering and um the texture wasn't right and I think when cookies are mass produced it definitely makes for a different product um the texture was was not what we're used to um The Taste wasn't what we're used to as well and you know when I first thought about doing this I I wondered what my family would think you know I'm taking the family recipe and um sharing it with everybody not giving the recipe away but sharing the the outcome and you know I got such wonderful um thoughtful responses from my aunts and my uncles and my parents so it was just wonderful that you know I'm very proud to be Italian-American and we can offer this and I'm lucky to have grown up with this and I just love sharing it and when sometimes people come up to me when I'm selling at a farmer's market and they say oh I don't like biscotti and then they taste mine and they're like wow I didn't know it was supposed to taste like this so it's definitely a joy that I can share my family's recipe with people
Apurv: that's really nice well thank you so much for coming on a podcast it was great knowing about Bakers Lane
Lyn: thank you so much for having me and if anyone watches and they want to have a discount code it's blb15 you can enter that on the website and get 15 off your order yay yay