During a typical day in Juno Pandolfi’s Union City, New Jersey, pottery studio, he and his team of 30 people unload more than a thousand pieces from their 13 kilns, and plates, bowls and mugs from around the world. Sends to restaurants and home cooks. .

The multi-textured dinnerware is sold and used by hundreds of restaurants and FX’s TV series “The Bear.” Similar large-scale collaborations pushed the company to profitability in 2012, but when the Covid-19 pandemic closed restaurants, Jono Pandolfi Designs expanded its direct-to-consumer offering.

It was a profitable move: now, direct-to-consumer sales represent about half of the business’s revenue. In late December, the company estimated it would bring in more than $6.6 million in 2024, according to documents reviewed by CNBC Make It.

“I think it’s safe to say that it’s very difficult for a ceramic artist or someone who has studied clay to build a business that’s making more than $6 million a year,” Pandolfi, 48, says. are “I feel like I’m living a ceramic artist’s dream.”

Customers can now buy Pandolfi products — like four-piece settings, starting at $172 — on its website. The studio charges $51 for an 8-inch bowl of pasta, made from about $1 worth of clay, but far more in labor costs, says Pandolfi, who shares the company’s gross profit margin. Refused to do.

While labor is the biggest expense of the business, firing and polishing the bowls also requires a financial investment. Once the studio began taking on high-profile clients like Anthropologie and Crate & Barrel, it needed more kilns to keep up with demand. Pandolfi says the business has taken out three loans, each for between $100,000 and $200,000, starting in 2016.

“The kilns really pay for themselves,” Pandolfi added. “We’ve built this business entirely on our cash flow.” For example, the studio’s large gas kiln fires about 500 dinner plates a night. could, resulting in a potential income of about $18,000.

But it took decades for business productivity and income to increase. Pandolfi started the company in 2004 as a side hustle and personal creative outlet, while she taught ceramics and worked for major manufacturers to pay the bills. When he lost his manufacturing job six years later, he took on his company full-time, about 60 hours per week, as a sign of growth.

The turning point for his company came in 2012, when the NoMad Hotel opened in New York. Pandolfi says he ordered more than 6,000 pieces in a $100,000 contract. After the NoMad hotel project, he hired his first full-time employee and began buying more equipment, he added. The hotel has been closed ever since.

He says that slowly building the business, gradually increasing its output, production and margins, is Pandolfi’s main goal. The company’s shift to a direct-to-consumer strategy is, so far, supporting that vision: It brought in about $5.2 million in 2023, and has more than tripled its revenue since 2020.

“It’s always been incredibly important to me … from day one, building it. [company] In a bulletproof way, in a sustainable way,” he says. “I think the goal now is to continue to capture the organic demand that we have and [maintain that] Sustainable development for many years to come… keeping the character of this place intact.”

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