Tastes Better From Scratch

Lauren Allen, Founder
Liz Haslem, Director of Operations

Phoenix, AZ
Lauren and Liz in their kitchen holding their cookbook. The Tastes Better From Scratch site.
Lauren cooking.
Showing the world how easy it is to make food from scratch

For identical twin sisters Lauren and Liz, growing up in Park City meant interacting with travelers and neighbors from across the globe. "Park City is a melting pot of people from all over the world," says Liz. "We were exposed to so many different kinds of cuisines at an early age." That early exposure was compounded by a tradition of wonderful cooks at home. "We were surrounded by great homemade food," Lauren shares. "But when I got to college, I was shocked at how many people didn't have the foundations of cooking - buying store bought items or not even knowing how to cook chicken." Lauren saw this as an opportunity to educate and help her peers experience what homemade cooking has to offer. "I wanted to show people who are intimidated by cooking that it's cheaper and better to make things from scratch - so I started a blog and called it Tastes Better From Scratch," she says.

Lauren started posting content on the blog in 2009, but didn't realize how popular it had become until her sister-in-law introduced her to Google Analytics. "We saw that I was getting thousands of visitors per month," Lauren recalls. "And she said to me ‘I think you can make money from this.'" So in 2014, Lauren took a leap of faith. She worked tenaciously over time to grow her traffic and post new content. And began using Google AdSense to monetize her content with ads, eventually transitioning to AdThrive, a Google Certified Publishing Partner. "We started making money about a year into it," she says. "And by 2017 we were making six figures in ad revenue."

Lauren in her kitchen.
Incorporating new ingredients into the business

That's when Liz came on board. "I work full time now as Director of Operations and things have just grown and grown to where Lauren does all the parts she loves and I manage the business side," says Liz. The site now receives an average of over 10 million pageviews each month and Tastes Better From Scratch has over one million followers across their social media channels.

The Tastes Better From Scratch team has continued to rely on their ad revenue to fuel growth. "Ad revenue is essential to our business, if we didn't have it, we'd have to change our whole business model," which Lauren says is something they wouldn't want to do. "We've always been passionate about sharing our love for cooking and great recipes. Offering our content for free makes it accessible to anyone and everyone looking for recipes online. We're so grateful for our ad-supported business model that allows us to get paid for sharing what we love."

The funding also enables the team to build the business in new ways. "Ad revenue really allows us to expand our business and hire people," says Liz. That's something that's been incredibly rewarding for Lauren. "I knew it would be a great feeling to be able to support my family with this business," she says. "But it's so rewarding to hire other people. We have an all female team who work from home, it's incredible to be able to give people a job they love but that gives them the time they want with their family."

As the team has grown now to four full-time employees and 12 contract workers, Tastes Better From Scratch has turned to Google's tools to support collaboration. "We use Google for everything," says Liz. "They have by far the easiest and best tools. We use Google Workspace for Business - it allows us to share video and photo content really easily and collaborate together on documents. And Google Meet and Calendar help us seamlessly connect virtually."

“We've always been passionate about sharing our love for cooking and great recipes. Offering our content for free makes it accessible to anyone and everyone looking for recipes online. We're so grateful for our ad-supported business model that allows us to get paid for sharing what we love.”
Creating a family legacy

Lauren recently brought her website from the digital world into the physical with a cookbook. "I always think of the cookbooks my mom had growing up and I really wanted mine to be a legacy of our best recipes," she says. "When my kids see the book in local stores they freak out – I could have millions of followers online but they didn't care until I had a book."

For Lauren and Liz, building this family business has been a joy. "I've been super lucky to have Liz," says Lauren. "She has a great business mind and is so encouraging to work with." And the two remain deeply passionate about their work and the life they've created. "To be able to do what we want, and how we want to do it is irreplaceable," says Liz. "It's been amazing to build this business and the growth has been so fun to be a part of."

About the Publisher

​​Lauren Allen is the recipe creator behind the popular food blog, Tastes Better from Scratch, where millions of readers come each month to find easy, family-friendly recipes. She has four children with her husband, Jeff, and when she's not creating recipes she enjoys time spent outdoors in the warm Arizona weather with her family.
Lauren Allen and Liz Haslem