Meet Andréa Homoya // Founder & CEO, Ash & Elm Cider Co.
With a background in sales, consulting, and management, Andréa handles the day-to-day operations of Ash & Elm Cider Co. She is particularly interested in growing the brand’s presence through distribution and sales strategies, along with coordinating all of the moving parts of a small business.
Andrea grew up all over the world, spending her youth in Tanzania, California, and Singapore before settling in Indianapolis. She enjoys trail runs, cooking, reading, and taking care her sons, Soren and Enzo.
EiE: In just a few words or sentences, tell us who you are.
Andréa: I’m a fun and focused ideas person who is growing into her role as a CEO and Founder.
Why cider? How did Ash & Elm come to be?
To be 100% transparent, cider itself is more of my husband Aaron’s passion. I’m passionate about creating something out of nothing and figuring out unique ways to do that. Cider was the beverage of choice that he wanted to focus on, and I loved the idea because it was a category that didn’t have much competition in Indiana at the time, but was growing nationally. I thought it would be a really interesting challenge to basically create a new beverage category in our state and all that comes with it: educating consumers, finding partnerships locally, and building a new market.
How has your local community taken to Ash & Elm? How has the brand evolved?
We have been so welcomed by our community! We knew when we opened that there would be a core of people who’d already had cider and liked it; we also knew that there were a lot of people who liked trying craft beer and would consider a stop to a cidery a way to further their palate. We were tiny and had good growth in the first couple of years, but it was during the pandemic when I really realized what we’d come to mean to so many people in our community. We had (socially distanced) lines out the door that wrapped around our parking lot when we released new ciders in 2020. We started shipping outside of the state that year, and I would go into the warehouse to fulfill those orders during those scary early days of the pandemic, and was brought to tears a few times seeing the names of our customers near and far who were supporting us in whatever way they could.
Since we opened, we’ve definitely found our niche. At first, since we were bringing a new product to Indianapolis; we could be anything we wanted and we did a lot of experimentation. We still do that, but now we know what our customers want. We’ve also moved our brand from being very earthy and natural to a little more clean and modern, aesthetically speaking.
Can you tell us more about how you source your ingredients, and what the Ash & Elm production process is like?
We get almost all of our nearly 100,000 gallons of apple juice from Michigan, with smaller batches from local Indiana orchards. When we can source ingredients locally or regionally, we do, like cherries from Michigan, maple syrup from local farmers, and berries from northern Indiana.
When it’s time to make a new batch of cider, we contact our orchard partner in Michigan and order a tanker. The apples are then pressed that day and shipped overnight to our production facility in Indianapolis. We ferment the juice using white wine yeast, and then divide up different batches into smaller tanks to finish based on what the cider is going to be. In some cases, we just adjust some sugar and acidity levels, and in others, we’re toasting spices, adding multiple fruits, or dry-hopping the cider. Then we carbonate and can it, and it’s on its way out the door!
Have you always aspired to open a business of your own? Is this your first entrepreneurial endeavor?
I don’t think I ever imagined opening my own business, but looking back, I can see that I’ve always been a bit of an entrepreneurial thinker. This is my first official business venture, but I did try to sell some hamsters at a corner store when I was 8, after my pet hamsters had surprise babies and my parents said I couldn’t keep them all. Does that count? (Editor’s note: it totally counts.)
If you could do one thing differently while you were first starting out, what would it be?
I’ve grown a lot over the years in how I manage our employees. I think I maybe was a bit frustrated or impatient when we first started out because I cared so much and was putting so much into the business myself, and I wanted other people to care that much too. But no one is going to care about my business as much as I do, and that’s okay. I wish I would’ve been more gracious or understanding and not taken things as personally when early employees wanted to just have a job or a side gig.
Any advice for folks interested in running a business with their partner? What are some strategies you and Aaron have implemented to balance your roles and relationship?
Honestly I think we’re still working on that! Aaron stayed at his day job for the first six years of our company and has only worked full time for our business for a year and a half, so we’re still adjusting to both being full-time coworkers. I’m not sure I’d recommend it to most couples; you have to be able to really separate business conversations from your personal feelings. Aaron and I happen to both be very logical and not particularly emotional, and that is really good because you can almost guarantee that if a new opportunity or idea presents itself, we will choose opposite approaches to it. We are constantly debating with each other about ideas, and if either of us had a tendency to take things personally, I’m not sure it would work. As it is, we get kind of heated and frustrated with each other during business hours about business decisions, and then wait a sec and say, “Okay, so are you picking up the kids today or am I?” and forget it by the time we get home.
What are your favorite Ash & Elm products at the moment? What do you recommend to a first timer?
Great question! Some of my favorite ciders are Headlong, Obscura, and Del Camino. I prefer my ciders not too sweet, and these fit the bill! As far as food, our tofu fries are delicious. I always recommend a flight of ciders (our servers are well-trained in finding a mix that will appeal based on your tastes) and an appetizer to start off a visit to our restaurant.
Where can we find you on a day ‘off’?
I spend so much time talking with people and customers for work, and parenting our two toddlers at home, that if I ever get a day off, I love to, like, not speak for the entire day—whether that’s going on a solo hike, heading to the gym to clear my head, or reading a book.
How can people engage with your brand if they aren’t based in Indianapolis?
I mentioned earlier that we started shipping our cider in 2020; we still do that, and now ship to 40+ states! People can buy a cider that sounds good to them and get it shipped to their home, gift cider to a friend or family member, or even become a member of our A&E Cider Club, a subscription service with monthly and quarterly options. www.ashandelmcider.com/buycider
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