By JAMES BELL
Hays Post
When the previous owner was ready to sell an established beer bread mix business, four Hays family members saw an opportunity to have fun and maybe even turn a little profit.
The owners, Shaun and Heather Musil, along with Shaun’s sister Tina Hansen and her husband Bruce, make the mix at The Paisley Pear, 1100 Main, after purchasing the business on June 21.
“Long story short, a young lady from Goodland started this when she was 11 years old,” Shaun said.
“If we had not bought this business, she would have closed up shop,” Bruce said.
“We were excited to keep it going,” Shaun said.
Musil is also connected to the area where the previous owner was located and had already sold the product.
“We grew up in that area,” he said. “Since we’ve been open, we’ve been buying the beer bread from her. My mother-in-law brought it down to me and I sell it at my market.”
When she was ready to sell, Shaun thought it would be a good opportunity to capture another local product to sell at The Paisley Pear, but also do something together as a family.
“We like to sell Kansas stuff, so on our days off we make beer bread,” Shaun said.
“This is crazy but we bought it for fun,” Heather said. “We hope to go on some adventures, the four of us.”
“We always have such a good time doing things together,” Tina said. “This is a good way to do it again.”
The mix is currently sold wholesale to a few area shops outside of The Paisley Pear, and Shaun hopes to expand the product’s reach.
“We’re trying to gain wholesalers and, in time, we will try and sell it online,” Shaun said. “But there’s a somewhat different process to that.”
Currently, the mix is also sold at Hideout Coffee in Osborne, Mr. K in Plainville, the Oasis Travel Shop and Kansas Country Store in Colby, and the Cowboy Corner in Goodland.
The mix is made in The Paisley Pear after hours by the group after they got some training from the previous owner.
“That was funny,” Heather said. “She was the one-man show. She did it all, and she would do 300 bags at a time — and we did 50 in four hours.”
Since then, they have figured out how to speed up the process.
“We’ve learned,” Musil said.
Their first production run filled 300 bags in about four hours and sold out.
So far, feedback on the product has been encouraging.
“It is a really good product,” Shaun said.
He also said the store staff is proud to offer something made right there in the shop.
“Everybody that we have given it to to try, or they have tried it, we have had nothing but good reports coming back that they think it is delicious,” Tina said.
While the venture is a way for the family to connect doing something they enjoy, it is a business and they hope to steer their investment in the right direction.
“It would be nice to show a little profit,” Bruce said.
“And grow distribution,” Shaun added.
As they work to find the right mix of distribution and sales, they said there is no difficulty in making the bread.
“We put all together in the pack, you mix it up with a can of beer or Sprite or pop and then you just bake it and it’s done,” Shaun said. “Forty-five minutes later and you’ve got a loaf of bread. I mean if I can do it, anybody can.”
More about the business can be found on their Facebook page here.
JC Post
