Today we’d like to introduce you to Leroy Hite.
Hi Leroy, thanks for joining us today. We’d love for you to start by introducing yourself.
I founded Cutting Edge in 2013 with a goal to provide unmatched quality wood and unparalleled customer service nationwide. The company offers ultra premium firewood and a wide variety of cooking wood species and cuts. have loved disrupting the firewood industry. Everything we do is different than the industry standard! We reimagined everything about the firewood industry so that our high-quality firewood, packaging, logistics, white-glove customer service, and all the little things we include with our products improve the experience and exceed our customers’ expectations.
Would you say it’s been a smooth road, and if not what are some of the biggest challenges you’ve faced along the way?
The firewood business isn’t for the faint of heart. We’ve overcome lots of bumps along the way. One early bump as the business was growing steadily was in late 2015 when one of my suppliers went out of business. I opted to take over their facilities, their rent and bought their equipment in anticipation of servicing a national grocery chain as their back-up supplier. I knew the grocery chain always ran out of firewood with their main suppliers each year. Unfortunately, it was the warmest winter on record in Georgia, and I didn’t sell a single piece of firewood to the grocery chain.
Another moment that tested me came a year or two later when a firewood company I was competing against for commercial and restaurant accounts bought a lot of inventory from me and were supposed to deliver our firewood – but they didn’t. I salvaged some of my business by writing up a new contract that allowed me to do the delivery, but I felt like I was at square one again. I had a customer list, outdated website and a box truck. I needed to infuse funds into the business, so I went to my wife to see if she would agree to sell our house to fund the business. At the time, we had two young daughters at home, and she was 8 months pregnant with our third. She really trusted me and we trusted in God and agreed to sell the house and move into a rental home.
That was a turning point and Cutting Edge Firewood really grew by leaps and bounds after that. I have assembled an amazing team and many have been with me now for several years.
We used the funds from our house sale to get a warehouse, refresh the brand, launch a new website and hire excellent employees. The two amazing suppliers I work with today also happened to cold call me that summer to establish a relationship and we are still happily working together now.
We’ve been impressed with Cutting Edge Firewood, but for folks who might not be as familiar, what can you share with them about what you do and what sets you apart from others?
Cutting Edge Firewood is the world’s first luxury firewood and cooking wood company. We have three main product lines- Firewood, Wood for Wood Fired Pizza Ovens and Smoking Wood for grills and smokers. We use only the best hardwoods for firewood and cooking, including oak, hickory, cherry, apple, pecan, and maple.
At Cutting Edge, we continue to innovate in several ways. We transformed customer deliveries with a more efficient system and with our patent protected racks. We designed firewood kits with firewood, fire starters and kindling – everything you need to start a fire with a single match. We started offering cooking wood with oak and hickory species, and then extended the line with cherry, pecan, apple, and maple. We then added a wide variety of cuts — chunks, splits, mini pizza cuts and more — to meet every grilling need. We are nimble and can respond quickly to trends we see on the horizon.
I am most proud of Cutting Edge Firewood’s customer experience and consider it our biggest accomplishment. A consultant we worked with once remarked that our customers don’t leave us reviews, they write us love letters. We’ve had everyone from celebrities including Terry Bradshaw to the chairman of a $100 billion company write us letters, emails and reviews telling us how awesome our service is, how great our products are and how they had an unmatched experience.
We’d love to hear about any fond memories you have from when you were growing up?
In the summers, I would meet my friends and we would spend the whole day at the neighborhood swimming pool, playing games like Sharks and Minnows and Marco Polo. Those sunny days at the pool blended one into the next. I would also go to church camp every summer, and I really loved that. Plus, I may have gotten the idea for a firewood business as a child. When I was about 10 or 11 years old, I split firewood for days from a huge hickory tree that fell in our yard.
Pricing:
- Box of Premium Oak Firewood – $89
- Rack of Premium Oak Firewood – $375
- Standard Variety Box of Cooking Wood Chunks – $49
- Standard Box of Mini Pizza-Cut Wood – $69
- Box of Artisanal Hickory Wood – $99
Contact Info:
- Website: www.cuttingedgefirewood.com
- Instagram: www.instagram.com/cutting.edge.firewood
- Facebook: www.facebook.com/Cutting Edge Firewood
- Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/firewoodandcookingwood/
- Youtube: www.youtube.com/@cuttingedgefirewood.com
Image Credits
photos compliments of Cutting Edge Firewood
