In 2019, Justina Rucinski was sexually assaulted in her home in Burlington, IA when a supposed client came to pay for a cookie order. That traumatic event not only forever changed her life, but has also changed cottage food laws around the country.
Justina now lives in San Antonio, TX and continues to sell custom decorated cookies and cakes with her cottage food business, SweetEms.
After her horrific experience, she came very close to shutting down her business. But with massive support from bakers around the world, she has both resurrected it and become one of the most popular cottage food bakers in the United States!
In addition to her business success, Justina has become an advocate for the safety of all home bakers. Because of her story, many states no longer require cottage food producers to put their home address on their product labels.
In this emotional episode, Justina shares how the cottage food community helped lift her out of utter darkness, so that she could once again continue running the business that she loves so much!
Understandably, Justina didn’t go into details about her traumatic experience, but you can learn more via the news articles, linked below.
What You’ll Learn
- How Justina built her custom cookie business from the ground up
- How she ran her business while being a single mom of two young kids
- How she went from hating cookies to focusing on them in her business
- How her pricing dramatically changed over time, to the point of selling one dozen cookies for $145
- Why Justina was on the brink of closing her cookie business, but ultimately decided not to
- How bakers all around the world came together to support Justina
- How she came out of utter darkness and resurrected her baking business
- The importance of letting people know who you are, when you own a business
- Why her mystery boxes and cookie kits have worked well
- Why Justina includes a decorated cookie of her penguin logo with every custom order
- How your business can impact others without you even realizing it
- How Justina’s story has changed the home address labeling requirement in many states’ cottage food laws
Resources
SweetEms Website
Facebook Page | Instagram Feed
News article by Courtney Crowder from The Des Moines Register — ‘I was in hell’: After a stranger violently raped a home baker, she’s dedicating her life to making sure no other woman feels that pain
News article by Laigha Anderson from The Hawk Eye — ‘You took a piece of my soul’: Survivor Justina Rucinski, facing her attacker during sentencing
Iowa Cottage Food Law
Iowa Home Bakery Law
Get full show notes and transcript here: https://forrager.com/podcast/40
