From a Kitchen Experiment to Cullowheegee Farms: Our Story on Exploration Local

Sometimes you don't realize you're standing at the beginning of something that will change your life.

In 2017, Cullowheegee Farms didn't exist. There was no warehouse, no production schedule, no wholesale accounts, and certainly no vision of seeing our products on shelves across the country.

There was just a kitchen, a love of natural ingredients, and a desire to make something special.

What started as handmade soap made for Christmas gifts slowly turned into something much bigger. People began asking where they could buy the soap. Local stores started carrying it. One order led to another, and before we knew it, what had started as a little kitchen project was becoming a real business.

Eventually, the day came when we had to make a pretty big decision: take a leap of faith and make Cullowheegee Farms our full-time life.

In 2021, I left my job. In 2022, my husband did the same. We traded the security of traditional jobs for the uncertainty — and excitement — of building something of our own.

We outgrew our home studio, we built a warehouse and soap studio on our property where we could finally spread out and build the infrastructure needed to keep up with the growing demand.

And it has grown.

Today, Cullowheegee Farms products are sold in more than 250 locations across 37 states. We've gone from making a handful of bars in our kitchen to producing thousands of products for customers and retailers across the country.

But the numbers aren't really the best part of the story.

The best part is everything that happened along the way.

It's the people who bought that very first bar of soap. The local stores that took a chance on us. The customers who came back again and again. The wholesale partners who helped introduce Cullowheegee to people we'd never have reached on our own.

It's the late nights, the early mornings, the mountains of soap waiting to be cut and packaged, the mistakes we've learned from, and the moments when we stopped and realized, "Wow...we actually built this."

And through all of it, we've tried to stay true to why we started in the first place: creating genuinely natural products with ingredients we believe in, while being mindful of the impact we're leaving behind.

Recently, we had the opportunity to sit down with Exploration Local and talk about all of it.

We talked about where Cullowheegee Farms came from, how a simple Christmas gift turned into a business, what it was like to leave our jobs and take the leap, the challenges of growing a small business, and the people and places that have helped shape Cullowheegee along the way.

And honestly, it's a little surreal to hear our story told back to us.

Because when you're in the middle of building something, you're usually too busy doing the work to stop and look at how far you've come.

The conversation with Exploration Local gave us the chance to do just that.

And there's one more reason you'll want to listen all the way to the end...

At the end of the episode, we reveal a super exciting project we've been quietly working on — something we've been dreaming about and working toward for quite some time.

We're not going to spoil it here. 😉

You'll just have to listen.

🎙️ Give our episode of Exploration Local a listen and hear the Cullowheegee Farms story straight from us. We hope you'll laugh with us, learn a little about what happens behind the scenes, and maybe be reminded that sometimes the biggest adventures begin with something incredibly small.

And who knows? Maybe you'll be just as excited as we are when you hear what comes next.

Listen to the episode and come along for the next chapter of Cullowheegee Farms.

Listen Here or where ever you get your podcasts!