A new Jacksonville business recently in the national spotlight is having an open house this weekend.
The Nothing Fancy Supply Company, known for its environmentally sustainable beeswax food wraps that was featured on Good Morning America, will be having a showcase of its products and new warehouse at 316 North Mauvaisterre Street from 9AM to 1PM on Saturday.
Owner Colleen Flinn says that its been a whirlwind for her local business when she started selling the product at the Springfield Farmer’s Market just a few years ago to now having a warehouse for her product: “It’s a really interesting time. I came across some people who had space in a building, and they knew what I was doing. They said ‘Whatever you need, let’s make it happen, and we’ll get you into Jacksonville.’ They have. I’ve just been…I think luck has really played a part into Nothing Fancy, because I’ve had so many good people enter my life.”
Flinn says the manufacture of the product has gone from causing fires on her home stove, to a small 100-year old shed in her back yard to the new warehouse.
She says the making of the wraps has also evolved: “Someone had told me that I should call up Lahey Machinery and see if they could make something that would make [the process] more automatic. I was like uh, okay; but I called, and the first time and told them that I want something that can do this, this, and this. He immediately said ‘Okay, I think we can do something like this and it could do this. It took 4 or 5 months, but we got a machine down where it’s like a wax bath that the fabric goes through. It’s still very much a hands-on process because the fabric has to be hand cut before it goes through the machine and then, rolled and cut afterwards. It’s very much a hand-crafted product. I don’t want to say handmade because we use the machine, but it is certainly handcrafted.”
Flinn says that she has been dealing with supply chain issues with fabric from her purchasing house in New Jersey, but has steadily been able to keep up with orders. Flinn says she will also have fellow small business owners coming to the open house. She says it’s also a great excuse to decorate: “My girls that work with me, we love to decorate; so we thought, ‘Well, we are going to decorate the warehouse for Christmas.’ We are going to invite people to come in and see it and shop. Not all of our wraps make it to retail stores. Some of them might have small imperfections in them. We call those “the seconds,” and we are going to have those for sale that day. We will have discontinued patterns, and then, of course, our regular products and a few other branded leather products. I think we have about 10 vendors coming – some are from Jacksonville and some are from Springfield and Auburn. The Leo’s Pizza truck will be there, and the Warehouse 200 is going to have a mimosa bar.”
Flinn says she is also working on a downtown shopping guide for people who are coming in from out of town for the open house this weekend. For more information about Nothing Fancy Supply visit them online at https://nothingfancysupply.com or find them on Instagram and Facebook.
A full interview with Flinn can be found in the audio archives on this website.