A Special Report for Women’s History Month
As with many things, it was necessity that became the mother of Becky Rosenthal’s invention. Becky was hungry, so she went to her New York apartment kitchen and whipped up the bite-sized idea that would change her life. Not only would this fateful evening give birth to “Becky’s Bites,” but it would put Becky into the middle of an industry where only 23% of chefs and head cooks are women.
It was 2013, and Becky’s late-night craving was now being sated by her first-ever batch of chocolate-dipped cream cheese bites. She couldn’t believe how addicting these sweet treats were and was surprised to find no one had come up with anything quite like it.
“I had this idea that was really unique and interesting and I had never seen it before,” Becky said. “So I started it and I was getting a lot of positive responses!”
Becky decided to take a risk: build a business serving up specialty cream cheese treats made from her own recipes. She started small: working out of her apartment kitchen and fulfilling orders herself.
“A lot of it was word-of-mouth in the beginning–meeting with catering partners and such. We did a lot of social events like weddings and parties,” she said.
In 2017, she opened her first brick-and-mortar in the East Village with her husband and business partner, Richard Rosenthal.
“Together we put the wheels in motion to open a retail store and take it to the next level,” Becky said. “We were in our space for almost three years, which we loved! It was great because it had natural marketing exposure with our retail storefront.”
The Unique Challenges of Women & The Food Business
More than three quarters of chefs and head cooks in America are men. This statistic didn’t come as a surprise to Becky, she understands first-hand the difficulties of balancing a business and home as a woman.
“Having a family is taxing on both men and women, but I think a lot of pressure gets put on the mother in particular,” she said. “It’s a delicate balance and most women understand that it’s hard, if you’re trying to do both – run a business and take care of your family.”
It was this balance of work-family (and overhead costs) that ultimately led Becky to pursue a partnership with Butter Lane, a cupcake shop just across the street.
“The owner of Butter Lane is also a woman. I think one of the reasons we hit it off really well was because our situations were just so similar. She has two small kids. We have a 20-month-old and another baby on the way, so we both have our hands full with children and running a business,” Becky said. “There’s a lot there that we felt we connected on.”
The partnership between Becky’s Bites and Butter Lane just kicked off in February 2020, but Becky is already looking forward to what’s to come.
“We’re excited because soon we’re going to start launching our products together, so that’s the next step,” she said.
Becky said while they are still working out some of the details, the idea is to offer more treats to more people, filling gaps where they exist.
“There will be some mix of creating packages where you get some Butter Lane products and some Becky’s Bites products,” she said. “That would maybe fill some gaps for companies who are looking for a bigger variety of things. We’re also going to be launching all new products together.”
Becky entered onto the Cater2.me platform to help scale her business and bring her tasty treats to offices and hungry employees. If you want to support her and more women-owned businesses like “Becky’s Bites,” talk to one of our catering experts in your city.
