Wondering how much we actually use our Vitamix, this month part-time with an A3500, part-time with a Vitamix Pro 750 (with 32 ounce container and 20 oz Personal Cup Adapter), and part-time with my mom’s Pro 500 (pictured above from our week at the lake)? Us, too!

Here’s our June Vitamix Usage Report from the headquarters of Life is NOYOKE (our apartment in sunny, beautiful Chicago!) and our week with family at the lake!

But first, let’s assess our Vitamix usage at a high level.

June 2017 Recap

June was one of those good months. Work hard, play hard.

We made and published a ton of new recipes. (See below.)

And, we posted a couple of new videos to our YouTube channel.

Specifically, this game-changing, super-helpful vid, How to Make Green Juice in Your Vitamix. (This is what we’ve been making every single morning.)

And, this video featuring Shalva at Vitamix headquarters getting to see the 8-ounce containers for Ascent in action.

We are excited to utilize the 8-ounce containers (review) during July and share with you what we made.

Also pretty exciting, we put our queso into jars. People constantly tell us we should sell it. Fun idea, but I’m not sure the math really makes sense. (More on that below after the detailed Vitamix usage.)

Anyway, that was our work.

The play? Well, we got to spend a week at the lake with my family.

Having the Vitamix there was incredible. Back in the day, bringing the Vitamix to the lake might have been a marketing stunt for us.

But now? It was incredibly useful. We snacked on several batches of queso, got started with morning green juice, and sipped on adult drinks galore. Really glad we had it. (Below is brother-in-law James about to twist up a piña colada.)

Anyway, we hope you enjoy looking through the things we made this month. If you make something, be sure to tag #lifeisnoyoke.

Remember: Your creations do not need to be the most picturesque. We love cheering you on no matter what.

As always, thanks for reading. 🙂

Vitamix Usage

All of the following were made in our Vitamix this month, part-time with an A3500, part-time with a Vitamix Pro 750 (with 32 ounce container and 20 oz Personal Cup Adapter), and part-time with my mom’s Pro 500.

Note 1: Obviously, our lifestyle is extremely conducive to heavy use. Work from home, make a living as virtual Vitamix reps. But full transparency is the goal here. What do we actually do with our Vitamix?

Note 2: I realize some of these items have an ordered list that begins with “1” but stops there. No “2” or “3” or so on. Well, until I figure out a better way to deliver this information, we’re just going to have to live with ordered lists that end at 1. And yes, I tried unordered list format (bullet points), but that makes it more difficult to tally everything up and a single bullet point is almost just as bad a single item in an ordered list. Okay, moving on.

Summary: 66 Runs

Vitamix runs: 33

Total Vitamix runs (including self-cleaning): 66

Details: All the things we made

(Garlic Lime) Aioli »»

1. 6/7/17

Banana Nice Cream »»

1. 6/3/17 (with fresh raspberries for Shalva’s DZ girlfriends)
2. 6/11/17 (with fresh cherries)

(Full-bodied) Black Tea Mango Smoothie »»

1. 6/15/17

(Bright) Blueberry Balsamic Vinaigrette »» (soooooo good)

1. 6/15/17

Cashew Queso »»

1. 6/3/17 (jars. Jars!!! see below)
2. 6/14/17 (double batch. jars!)
3. 6/24/17 (at the lake! I think this batch was consumed in five minutes)
4. 6/27/17

(Vegan) Chocolate Mousse with aquafaba »»

1. 6/15/17

Chocolate Peanut Butter Shake »»

1. 6/15/17
2. 6/16/17
3. 6/19/17
4. 6/27/17 (breakfast)

Creamy Wild Rice Soup »» (best soup ever)

1. 6/6/17

Green juice »» (video demonstration)

1. 6/1/17
2. 6/5/17
3. 6/8/17
4. 6/12/17
5. 6/17/17
6. 6/25/17

Guts Juice »»

1. 6/26/17 (the first time ever!)
2. 6/28/17 (again!)

Lemon Bars »»

1. 6/7/17

Pina Colada »»

1. 6/27/17 (brother-in-law James)
2. 6/27/17 (brother-in-law James again!)

(Homemade!) Margaritas »»

1. 6/25/17 (brothers-in-law at the lake)
2. 6/25/17 (brothers-in-law at the lake, again! same day!)

Strawberry Banana Shake (with vega) »»

1. 6/15/17

Robin’s Morning Blend »» (video demo)

1. 6/29/17

Sa-squash smoothie »»

1. 6/13/17

Thai Peanut Sauce »»

1. 6/26/17 (for build-your-own spring roll dinner at the lake!)
2. 6/27/17 (for Alana’s salad on the night she was assigned to make everyone dinner)

June Learnings

People tell us all the time we should manufacture our queso, and sell it.

Fine. How would it work?

Well, at first, we’d make it and sell it in the farmer’s market. Easy enough.

The tricky part is pricing it.

And even though we wouldn’t be using a distributer or a retailer (we’d be both), we would still need to price as though we were. Why?

Well, if the product is successful, it needs to be the same price to consumers whether bought at the farmers market or at the grocery store.

That’s the nice part of selling at the farmers market. You get to keep all that margin and tell your story directly to consumers.

But what if you go through traditional distribution?

• You get 50% margin when you sell to a distributer.
• Distributers take about 30% when they sell it to retailers.
• Retailers take 30-50% when they sell it to consumers.

Something that costs you one dollar to make will cost consumers about $5.50.

So quick math says you need to multiply your cost by about 5.5x.

So do the math. How much does it cost per jar?

• Raw ingredients.
• Jars.
• Labels if you want to get fancy with it.

Let’s assume $2.50 per jar 8-ounce jar (shown above). And that assumes we get amazing pricing on the ingredients, jars, and labels. (Fresh ingredients are expensive. And so are jars.)

That requires a price of nearly $15 per jar ($2.50 * 5.5x = $13.75).

So I’m not sure the math makes sense. Yes, it’s a premium, small batch, handmade product.

But fifteen bucks is a lot for a small jar. Even if its contents are liquid gold.

Maybe I’m wrong. Maybe we’re on to something.

Or, perhaps the better move is to sell nachos con queso. You’d use half the amount of queso sans expensive jars. That way:

• The queso is hot and super fresh.
• There’s a line waiting for the nachos. (Social proof!)
• Even at $10 for a plate of nachos, there’s much more value for market go-ers (and you!).

We’ll see. We gotta get through our move to MN, first.

Want to start a NOYOKE Queso (or nachos!) booth at your farmers market? Let us know. We’d love it.

Final thoughts

That concludes our Vitamix usage report for June 2017. Hopefully you’re inspired to try some of the things we made.

We loved making them and hopefully you will, too.

Thanks for reading,
Lenny and Shalva

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