Many college students have trouble finding fresh food on campus, and Simone Lacewell is doing something about it.
Lacewell, a junior business management student from Ashburn, Virginia started her Miki Bowls business a month ago.
Because she considers herself a “health freak,” she created Miki Bowls to fill the need for fresh fruit on campus.
“It was just hard for me to not to have fresh fruit and the café is too far for me. Even at the café, you never know what you’re going to get sometimes,” she said.
Even at places like Harris Teeter and Walmart, Lacewell is skeptical of how fresh the fruit truly is.
“If you look at some of the packagings, they say, ‘cut in Texas.’ So, it was cut in Texas, then shipped at least for a couple of days over to wherever it’s going to Greensboro,” she said. “And then, it sits on the shelf for another three days. That’s not fresh.”
She caters to students who may not have a vehicle on campus but still want to eat fresh.
She cuts up her fresh fruit every morning, then does deliveries to her customers after he classes. She makes custom bowls that include watermelon, strawberries, kiwi and more.
For most college students, eating problems stem from having too much food (albeit unhealthy) around, according to healthland.time.com.
But growing up, Lacewell’s mother always made sure she ate balanced meals, which inspired her to continue to eat healthily.
“We would have a meat, a veggie, a grain, you know what I’m saying? Like, it was always a balanced meal. She would not something without making a vegetable,” she said.
She receives countless messages about how good the bowls are and hopes one day to start a food truck.
When asked what sparked her spirit of entrepreneurship, she talked about always wanting to make her own money. She revealed that Miki Bowls wasn’t her first business.
It is her third.
Her first one began in cake decorating at 13-years-old.
“I’d do like custom cakes, I can make 3-D cakes, wedding cake, stuff like that,” she said.
She was self-taught and continued this business through high school. At 15 years-old she entered the Paradise Cake Competition in north Florida.
She competed against woman twice her age, that had been decorating cakes for years. Lacewell came in first place that day and considers it one of her proudest moments.
“They were so salty, but it just felt so good. I was 15 at the time and I was like, ‘I just did that,’” she said.
She also owns “Milan Simone,” her custom tee-shirt business. Lacewell was very strategic in using one business to support the other.
Marketing is the most important part of any business, according to starkdigital.net. And Lacewell knows this.
She used her gift of t-shirt design to help market and promote the Miki Bowl business.
Since its start date in September 2019, Miki Bowl’s Instagram page has over 500 followers.
“The first week we got like 1500 profile views. We’re doing well. So yeah, I just want to go up from here,” she said.
When it comes to future plans, she is not completely sure what she sees herself doing, but she does want to continue the oat of entrepreneurship.
“The possibilities are endless with me. That’s one thing I noticed about entrepreneurs. We don’t sit down. We get an idea and go for it,” she said.
