Behind the Scenes: Farm Life, Business Management & The Skills That Built It All

I don't often talk about my other hats outside of Dani's Kitchen Shop, but today I want to pull back the curtain a bit.

The Farm

Agriculture has been woven through my entire life—growing up on a farm, studying it in college, working professionally in the industry for years, and now helping my husband run our fourth-generation family pear orchard in Hood River. I also serve on our local irrigation district board.

On the farm, I play the behind-the-scenes role: bookkeeping, business management, and helping Herbie make decisions about our farm's future. Before fall 2021, I always worked outside the home to support our family because the reality of farming is this—we're price takers, we carry enormous risk, and we work incredibly hard.

We took a leap of faith that the farm could support us while I built Dani's Kitchen Shop full-time. For the past 4.5 years, we've scraped by, and it has coincided with some of the worst financial times in the pear industry in decades. I've chosen to see this as an opportunity to push myself, and I even created Herb's Harvest, a shelf-stable direct-to-consumer product, to help put a few extra dollars in our own pockets.

I share this simply to offer a window into where your food comes from and the hands that grow it. Agriculture is complex, challenging, and incredibly important work.

Know Your Role, Play It Well

Not every business owner needs to be the face of their brand—and sometimes, you're the face of one business while working behind the scenes in others.

I manage three different businesses alongside my husband. In Dani's Kitchen Shop, I'm front and center—teaching, creating, connecting with customers. But in Annala Orchards and The Mae Group, my role is purely business management. And that's exactly where I thrive.

Business management is what I went to college for—Agricultural Business Management at Oregon State University—and it's what I've built my entire professional career around.

I've worked as an educator for Oregon State University Extension Service, as an agricultural lender helping businesses manage debt, and as a food safety manager. Every role taught me something critical about what it takes to run a sustainable, profitable business. And now, I bring all of that real-life experience into my own ventures.

Here's what I've learned: Understanding where you add the most value—whether that's customer-facing or behind the scenes—is critical to long-term success.

In our family pear orchard and The Mae Group, I handle bookkeeping, strategic planning, systems development, risk management, and decision-making support. It's not glamorous. It doesn't show up on Instagram. But it's the foundation that allows everything else to grow.

In Dani's Kitchen Shop, I get to be both—the face of the brand and the business manager. And that dual perspective is exactly why I created The Business of Baking.

Bringing It All Together

I've spent years learning how to build businesses from the ground up—through formal education, professional experience, and plenty of trial and error in my own ventures. I wanted to package all of that knowledge into something approachable and actionable for bakers who are ready to grow but aren't sure where to start.

One of my former students said it best:

"Dani has a special talent for making people feel empowered and confident in taking the next step in the growth of their business. Her course held my hand through each daunting step of growing my food business: from marketing strategy to branding, from scaling to liability, she has been through it herself and packaged up all of her knowledge in an approachable course to help get you where you want to be, one step at a time!"

The Business of Baking isn't just theory. It's seven years of building a profitable baking business, combined with decades of professional experience in agriculture, finance, education, and food safety. It's designed to help you understand not just what to do, but why it matters and how to implement it in your own business.

Whether you're just starting out or ready to scale, this course will help you build the business management foundation you need to succeed.

-Dani