SustainableWork

The world of artisan foods entrepreneurship is in its infancy. Innovation in foods and everything connected to it will increase omni-directionally, as Bucky Fuller said, for as far as I can see. This move toward local foods and regional food systems will make better, healthier foods available to increasing numbers of people at increasingly affordable prices.

I want to help make the Wisconsin Innovation Kitchen a platform for food innovators and entrepreneurs to take advantage of this emerging artisan foods marketplace.

One way we will launch this effort is through a program we're calling our Preparation Partnerships. In this process the Innovation Kitchen will prepare, process, package, store and distribute your food innovation for commercial sale.

I'm going to put the draft of this Preparation Partners plan into this blog post and then later move some of it forward as we see what works.

Our Preparation Partners will be food innovators - chefs, existing small food businesses, new food innovators, farmers, anyone who loves food. We will offer a partnership with the Innovation Kitchen to launch and grow artisan food businesses in a state-inspected, commercial kitchen.

Let's map out how this would work on one simple case.

Let's say you want to start or expand an artisan food enterprise.

As an example, let's say you wanted to start an food business around a soup or stew that celebrated a specific local food. [Editor's note: this is a very good idea.]

As a Preparation Partner you could have your recipe prepared and tested at the Innovation Kitchen in an artisan-batch, commercially relevant scale. If this works for all involved, we can help register your recipe and your new business with the state. Then, as a Preparation Partner, you can have your recipe prepared, packaged, and distributed for commercial sale on a contract basis through the Innovation Kitchen.

Here's an overview… The Preparation Partners program will be a platform you can utilize to launch your artisan food business without having to invest in an entire food processing facility and support networks on your own.

This Preparation Partner option will be the initial focus of the Wisconsin Innovation Kitchen. We see 3 key processes making up this program.

Process 1. Will it work? As your Preparation Partner, we want your food innovation to succeed. We will work with you to prepare your recipe in artisan-scale, commercially-relevant batches. This insures your recipe will meet your goals for taste, quality, packaging, etc. when it is prepared in larger volumes in a commercial kitchen. Think of it as a 'shakedown cruise' for your recipe.

Process 1 example: You have an amazing morel mushroom soup recipe. It works great in your home kitchen, and everybody loves it. You want to launch a small food business around this recipe. However, you need to learn a number of things about what happens when you scale your recipe up to small commercial batches. Will it meet your goals for quality? How much of the recipe ingredients will you supply? What ingredients will be purchased at what specifications and price? In short, what are the true costs of production for a small-scale commercial production run? This first process at the Innovation Kitchen is designed to answer those critical questions with you tasting and approving the results. This step also supplies critical documentation of real numbers and actual times required, not extrapolated results.

The idea is to make a small, smart investment in your emerging food enterprise to make sure the idea is scalable. Also important, this first Preparation Partner test run will give everyone involved a basis for pricing larger, commercial production runs if that is an option.

So, how is My Magnificent Morel Soup Mix doing? We rented time on the commercial dehydrator at the Wisconsin Innovation Kitchen and got a batch of our morels just right for a dry mix. We purchased some ingredients from local farms. We bought a few ingredients and our packaging through the Innovation Kitchen's Purchasing partner program. The recipe scaled up to a small-scale commercial size. All costs were documented.

This matched the targets in our business plans, and we decided to move forward and prepare for commercial sale.

Process 2. Signing In. Most food products sold commercially must have their recipes and process approved prior to sale. (A good thing for all of us!) There are exceptions, but if you're going to run an artisan foods enterprise you need to think of yourself as a professional and run your enterprise accordingly. That includes going through legal registrations and all professionally relevant trainings and certifications.

The Innovation Kitchen has the support in place to help legally register food products and processes in Wisconsin. We will also have access to full information for selling your food products outside of Wisconsin. Additionally, the Innovation Kitchen 'Signing In' process makes available business help finding information about appropriately registering new business entities.

Process 2 example: With the help of the Innovation Kitchen, we submitted our Morel Mushroom soup recipe and processing steps. We included all three of the sizes we were intending to produce. We were approved within a few weeks. During that time we also incorporated a new enterprise around our business plans and registered with the appropriate state and federal agencies. We also did this with resources available through the Wisconsin Innovation Kitchen.

Process 3. Launch services. Preparation Partners will have access to Wisconsin Innovation Kitchen marketing and sales networks, as well as storage and distribution networks.

Process 3 example: We test marketed our Magnificent Morel Mushroom Soup through the Innovation Kitchen marketing network and found the right mix of customers to start with. After processing our Magnificent Morel Mushroom Soup, the Innovation Kitchen stores our finished product. We send in orders for our soup, and the Innovation Kitchen ships them directly to our customers.

Wisconsin Innovation Kitchen Preparation Partners.

So, what's one of the easier and smarter ways to launch or grow an artisan food business? Outsource the testing, organization and food preparation to a state-inspected commercial kitchen that is set up to celebrate artisan foods.

All the difficult food regulation, management and execution steps will be done to code in a state-inspected commercial kitchen. You will have the opportunity to pre-test your recipe at a commercially relevant scale, document your costs, and market-test consumer demand.

Is this a guarantee of success? Of course not.

What the Wisconsin Innovation Kitchen represents is a valuable opportunity for food lovers and food entrepreneurs to experiment with new food innovations and product lines in an affordable, valuable setting. A goal of the Innovation Kitchen is to help develop new and existing artisan food enterprises that celebrate healthy foods and our grow our rural communities.

Our Preparation Partners program is one of the ways we can make that happen. Got a recipe you'd like to try?

Stay tuned. I will report back as this emerges.

Wisconsin Innovation Kitchen link

Photo is of Hyde's Mill in beautiful Iowa County, Wisconsin.

Labels: artisan food processing, bootstrapping, business plans, entrepreneurship, innovation, Outsourcing, platforms, slow startups, startups, Wisconsin Innovation Kitchen

Here comes the Grand Opening of the Wisconsin Innovation Kitchen! July 11, 2010, at Mineral Point, WI.

After watching the building slowly go up all winter, now work seems to be flying.

And just as that pace picks up so does the need to organize systems that help introduce this new opportunity to the world of local foods and artisan food processing. In many ways it was a blank sheet of paper with lots of (beneficial!) food safety regulations to wire in. As the opening gets closer, so does the need for information and processes to help people utilize this kitchen.

We are organizing the Wisconsin Innovation Kitchen as a partnership program.

To me that means that we, as farmers, food lovers, existing food businesses, and food entrepreneurs, have the ability to become partners with a non-profit, community-access commercial kitchen designed to help us grow our own artisan food enterprises.

Because it's a big world, there will be many different ways people will want to utilize a facility like this. With that in mind we're initially organizing around 4 different types of community partnership programs.

- Preparation Partners

- Processing Partners

- Purchasing Partners

- Event Partners

Preparation Partner - We prepare your recipe for you. This will include chefs that want to process artisan, small-batch production under their labels. Existing small food enterprises or new food entrepreneurs can have their recipes prepared in artisan commercial quantities by the Wisconsin Innovation Kitchen.

Our Preparation Partners will be able to start or expand artisan food businesses simply by following our intake path for this type of partnership. If you want to start an artisan food business without having to cook and clean yourself, or the need to get the required food processing certifications, our Preparation Partner program fits perfectly. Services for Preparation Partners can include full turnkey production, packaging and labeling, marketing, storage and shipping. Many great local foods opportunities down this path!

Our Processing Partners will be able to commercially process their own recipes in the Wisconsin Innovation Kitchen, utilizing any mix of their ingredients or purchased ingredients.

An array of support services will be available to our Processing Partners including packaging, storage and distribution. Processing Partners will have a separate path for utilizing the kitchen. This path will include help accessing required food processing certifications and insurance as well as ingredients and distribution services.

Our Purchasing Partners program will support small food entrepreneurs and businesses who could use better access to products and services they use, not at the Innovation Kitchen, but in their own food processing operations.

The Wisconsin Innovation Kitchen can supply a wide range of food ingredients, packaging and services to food businesses and food entrepreneurs. This path for Purchasing Partners is being designed to support the small food enterprise community with better access to materials, services and pricing.

Lastly, our Event Partners will utilize the Innovation Kitchen in many ways to celebrate local and artisan foods.

This can include chefs presenting seasonal local-foods cooking schools, food stylists, help for folks utilizing food assistance programs, and everyone with a great food event idea in between.

So, four simple paths into the Wisconsin Innovation Kitchen:

Preparation Partners - we prepare your recipes for you.

Processing Partner - you prepare and process your recipes.

Purchasing Partners - we help you purchase commercial food supplies and services for your own food processing operations.

Event Partners - we help you produce artisan food events in our commercial kitchen.

With the help of Tom and Annette at the Hodan Center, I'm building the back-office systems to provide (hopefully!) increasingly easy and useful ways to access these Partner Programs.

If you have ever wondered about starting your own food-based enterprise or growing an existing business into the world of local foods, the Wisconsin Innovation Kitchen will be a great platform to explore your dream, no matter what food path you're on.

Act on that dream. Local foods entrepreneurship is blossoming. New support infrastructure is emerging all over. You can do it.

Welcome, Partner!




Our emerging Wisconsin Innovation Kitchen site

Hodan Center

Before the Grand opening of the Wisconsin Innovation Kitchen comes the Grand Re-Opening of the Mineral Point Opera House Oh my gosh. Check this out. April 30, 2010.

Labels: artisan food processing, Innovation Kitchen, platforms, Wisconsin Innovation Kitchen

There is a strategy for helping local enterprises expand by providing the tools and resources needed to help then innovate and grow new markets.

It's called economic gardening and I greatly support the goals of this effort.

The economic gardening community would not want me to paraphrase, but I would say the basic idea is to support existing high-growth potential businesses and innovators with information and data tools needed to grow and create jobs.

In rural regions, where are those innovators, those businesses with growth potential? As I drive down my beautiful, rural Iowa County back roads, I'm passing entrepreneur after entrepreneur as I pass farm after farm.

There is an entrepreneur on every farm.

These are enterprises that need support structures to innovate, grow, and create jobs in rural communities. The demand is there for products and services ranging from food production and processing to knowledge workers. Our rural entrepreneurs need help with the infrastructure and networks required to connect them to that demand.

I'd guess that there must be a map of the density of entrepreneurs per regional population that would include farmers as entrepreneurs. I'll bet it shows rural regions having the highest densities of entrepreneurs.

And yet, in rural areas with high levels of entrepreneurship, historically there have been a lack of appropriate resources to support these businesses.

Rural entrepreneurs need data, knowledge, and help innovating and growing into new markets.

Those prospects are changing for the better. In Wisconsin there is a great program for growing new farmers. It's our School for Beginning Dairy and Livestock Farmers.

The Director of this great program is Dick Cates who also operates the award winning Cates Family Farm in - drum roll, please - beautiful Iowa County Wisconsin.

This is the kind of economic gardening support that rural entrepreneurs need: access to knowledge and training, appropriate infrastructure, and ongoing support.

We've been trying to add to that discussion with our efforts in Iowa County over the past year or so to put some network and physical infrastructure support in place to help our rural businesses utilize the knowledge that's out there to innovate and grow and make new jobs.

The vegetable processing facility in Highland will process 2011 crops.

A group of us have helped with support/training seminars held in Iowa County to help existing farmers and new food entrepreneurs to innovate and grow into our emerging facilities and expanding markets. The focus will be on profitable vegetable production, marketing and distribution in our region.

By helping make new tools and infrastructure available to our rural entrepreneurs, we can help them prosper in these new markets.

So, first up, our Wisconsin Innovation Kitchen in Mineral Point will have its Grand Opening on Sunday, July 11. We are working hard to make this facility the most valuable it can be by offering many ways for food entrepreneurs to access preparation services and processing tools needed to innovate and grow.

The Innovation Kitchen will become a knowledge hub as well as a physical platform. In one location, we will be able to link knowledge, data, and valuable personal connections to physical resources and easy access to vendors, buyers and sellers. I believe this is the kind of infrastructure and support network needed to help our rural entrepreneurs, businesses and communities grow into emerging opportunities.

Economic gardening for rural communities should include a focus on creating easier-cheaper-faster ways for farm based entrepreneurs and businesses in rural areas to access data, knowledge, and networks. It should always include support for the physical infrastructure needed to enable innovation, growth, and increasing access to markets.

There is an entrepreneur on every farm. Let's grow this resource.


School for Beginning Dairy and Livestock Farmers at the Center for Integrated Agricultural Studies at the University of Wisconsin - Madison.

Cates Family Farm. Our natural, delicious tasting beef is from Angus and Jersey steers grown 'free-range' in the open air on excellent quality pasture. Steers are 100% grass-fed and grass-finished spring through autumn. The steers are raised without added growth hormones, and they do not receive any type of antibiotic for a minimum of nine months prior to processing.

1998 Wisconsin Conservation Achievement Award and the 1999 Iowa County Water Quality Leadership Award.

2006 - present. Animal Welfare Institute Approved. First beef farm in the USA to earn this approval.

Download information about seminars for area growers and food entrepreneurs being held in Iowa County, WI during April 2010. The focus will be on profitable vegetable production, marketing and distribution in our region. Topics include, The economics of growing vegetables for profit, The correct way to harvest, pack, store and cool vegetables for maximum quality and market value, and The essentials of food safety and Good Agricultural Practices (also known as GAP). Expanding information leads to expanding markets. Join us!

The Wisconsin Innovation Kitchen

Schools for Beginning Fruit, Vegetable and Flower Growers also at the Center for Integrated Agricultural Studies at the University of Wisconsin - Madison.

Labels: artisan food processing, entrepreneurship, new product development, slow startups, Wisconsin Innovation Kitchen

Deputy Secretary of the USDA Dr. Kathleen Merrigan will be visiting Madison next week. She is a great proponent of a highly entrepreneurial effort at USDA called 'Know Your Farmer, Know Your Food'.

The 'Know Your Farmer' web site (link below) describes it this way: "This is a USDA-wide effort to create new economic opportunities by better connecting consumers with local producers. It is also the start of a national conversation about the importance of understanding where your food comes from and how it gets to your plate."

Wisconsin is rapidly emerging as a leader in innovative agricultural and rural economic development efforts that serve the goals of 'Know Your Farmer, Know Your Food.'

For instance, the Wisconsin Innovation Kitchen is our new community-access food processing kitchen, located at Mineral Point in Iowa County. Creative new food products can prepared in the Innovation Kitchen and sold commercially. This will be a great platform for increasing connections year round between local producers and consumers. A top goal is to help increase economic opportunities and successful connections between local producers and consumers in the world of local foods.

The Innovation Kitchen is available to custom process smaller batch recipes on a contract basis. This will be artisan food processing: small-batch food preparation done in a state inspected facility by people who truly love their work.

The Wisconsin Innovation Kitchen will also soon be available for rent on an hourly basis to food entrepreneurs with the appropriate certifications.

We will soon begin offering a program allowing chefs and food entrepreneurs to partner with specific growers and producers in our region to collaborate on creative new food products that can be prepared in the Innovation Kitchen for resale to their friends and followers.

There are many ways to use these types of platforms to create new economic opportunities to better connect consumers with local producers.

I think our Wisconsin Innovation Kitchen effort and all the exciting work done on the Highland/Driftless Foods project (vegetable processing and freezing) match up nicely with these goals.

Both create pieces of missing infrastructure that will allow wider regional audiences to know their farmer and know their food. All these efforts are being designed to be replicated appropriately in other regions.

The prototypes we're rolling out in Iowa County and all over Wisconsin, especially those of my friend Sue Noble in Vernon County, are being built to create new economic opportunities that connect increasing numbers of consumers with local producers.

The Wisconsin Innovation Kitchen is opening now. Driftless Foods, our high-speed vegetable processing project in Highland is accelerating every day. These are real tools that will create new economic opportunities and new understandings of where our food comes from.

Thanks to Dr. Merrigan for her support of this kind of work, and we welcome her to Wisconsin next week!



Know Your Farmer, Know Your Food.

Learn more about the Wisconsin Innovation Kitchen.

Labels: artisan food processing, Driftless Foods, entrepreneurship, Innovation Kitchen, Wisconsin Innovation Kitchen

I like thinking about new and emerging enterprises as practices.

Think of orthopedic practices, or law practices, or tax, accounting, or consulting practices, among many other professional examples.

As a startup or emerging business you will benefit in this new economy by holding yourself to this level of professionalism no matter the kind of enterprise you're involved in.

These people (practitioners) practice their craft long and hard but they DO continually practice. They get better. They innovate. They continue to grow. They continue to find new ways to add value to their customers. Or they fail.

Embedded in that growth is permission to start. If you have identified your enterprise as a 'practice' you've implicitly given yourself permission to start and (importantly!) to practice.

What's also implied is that you must plan strategies and business processes that make you increasingly proficient in the professional practice you are creating. It is vital that you learn, capture and improve with every transaction.

Building a successful practice in any field means establishing a professional business model as well as a subject expertise.

I'm going to stress this approach to new and emerging food entrepreneurs coming into the world of the Wisconsin Innovation Kitchen.

Truly professional local foods practices can emerge if they plan and practice. New systems will create new opportunities and new jobs.

What cool work to develop in to a professional practice. Why not think about creating a local foods practice in your life? There are a lot of opportunities. Not only in growing, but in retailing and processing and distribution and many other points along of the food chain.

There are opportunities for creating new small-scale but highly-professional practices not just in foods, but in manufacturing and services and health care and on and on.

Whatever your field, no matter how small you think your enterprise is, treat it as your professional practice. Grow your practice and it will grow you.

My core foundations for small business job creation: permission, planning and practice.

Labels: artisan food processing, entrepreneurship, Practice, slow startups

I believe economic development means helping create opportunities.

Inventor and Entrepreneur Clubs are a really fun way to discuss and learn about opportunities for starting and growing enterprises of all kinds.

We have ours in Iowa County typically on the fourth Monday evening of each month. People get together to discuss, ask questions, and share strategies about entrepreneurship and doing enterprise. It's really fun to see new and old friends interact and help one another with business and startup ideas.

Each month different speakers focus on specific topics. In next week's meeting we'll have Maria Davis from one of our great local foods group REAP, and Lois Federman from her wonderful program Something Special From Wisconsin. Mark will speak directly to growers interested in producing vegetables for the Highland processing and freezing plant. I'll get to cover the possibilities for food entrepreneurship and business expansion available through our new Wisconsin Innovation Kitchen. Looks like a landscape of great opportunities to me.

Here is our press release for our next Iowa County Entrepreneur Club meeting. You can download a PDF version at the end.


Iowa County Entrepreneur Club meeting to focus on growing businesses and creating jobs in local foods and regional food processing.

Dodgeville, WI –

Start or grow your own business around the growing possibilities of local foods and regional food processing!

Local foods and regional food enterprises are blooming everywhere. This is becoming a great way to start or grow businesses in Southwest Wisconsin.

Join us at our next Entrepreneur Club meeting Wed., Feb. 24 in Dodgeville, WI. This meeting will specifically focus on the strong possibilities for food and agricultural entrepreneurship in our region, with four featured speakers:

Maria Davis from the REAP Food Group (Research, Education,
Action, and Policy) will discuss 'Buy Fresh Buy Local Southwest
Wisconsin' and the demand for local foods.

Lois Federman from Something Special From Wisconsin will
discuss the possibilities for working with farmers markets,
produce auctions, and Community Supported Agriculture
(CSA) programs.

Mark Olson from Renaissance Farm will discuss plans for the
Individual Quick Frozen (IQF) vegetable processing and
freezing facility planned for Highland. This section is meant to
give regional growers as much information as is available so
they can plan future farm activities with this facility in mind.

Rick Terrien from Iowa County Area Economic Development will
discuss business support available for area growers and farm-based
entrepreneurs. Rick will also discuss business startup and
expansion possibilities at the new community-access Wisconsin Innovation
Kitchen, a state-certified food processing facility available to growers and
food entrepreneurs, operated by the Hodan Center in Mineral Point.

Grow your own business around the growing possibilities of local foods and regional food processing!

Please join us for a great evening of information sharing at our next Iowa County Entrepreneur Club meeting on Wednesday, Feb. 24. There will be a social hour beginning at 5:30 and the meeting will begin at 6 PM. The location is at the Stonefield Apartments, 407 E. Madison St., Dodgeville WI. The event is free to the public. Bring a friend!

Download more information, agendas, location maps and much more at http://www.iowacountyedc.org.5100b.html

Networking among attendees will be encouraged in the evening's program. "Our goal is to grow the network of entrepreneurs and those that support them in the Iowa County area" said Rick Terrien, Executive Director of ICAEDC.

The Iowa County Area Entrepreneurs Club is an informational forum where entrepreneurs, inventors, existing businesses, new businesses and people thinking about starting their own businesses can come together to encourage each other and share challenges and encouragement. The group meets on a monthly basis, usually the fourth Wednesday of the month. More information about the group is available on the ICAEDC website at www.iowacountyedc.org/5100b.html or by emailing info@iowacountyedc.org

Download a meeting flyer for this meeting focusing on growing vegetables for the proposed Highland processing and freezing facility:
http://www.iowacountyedc.org/imagesb/ Meeting_Flyer_2_24_10.pdf

END.

If you're in the area please stop by!

Iowa County. Come grow with us.

Iowa County (WI) Area Entrepreneurs Club

REAP Food Group. Research, Education, Action and Policy on Food Group is building a regional food system that is healthful, just, and both environmentally and economically sustainable.

Something Special From Wisconsin. I believe Iowa County Economic Development is the first County EDC member in Wisconsin. I love this program.

Mark's Renaissance Farm. Who knew cinnamon rolls could become an addiction?

Download this media release in PDF format

Information about growing vegetables for the proposed Highland processing and freezing facility.

Labels: artisan food processing, entrepreneurship, innovation, Innovation Kitchen, new product development, platforms, slow money, slow startups, startups, Wisconsin Innovation Kitchen

I got to meet up with statewide friends this week at the Wisconsin Economic Development Association meeting.

Many compelling discussions with a strong emphasis on innovation and entrepreneurship. Great to see the grow-your-own enterprises theme continuing to emerge.

My take-away from the event came from a longtime economic developer who had led a previous life as a serial entrepreneur. We were talking about how economic development organizations were measured.

His strongest point was that economic developers don't create jobs. Business people create jobs.

He's right of course. So what is it that economic developers can do well?

My notion of what economic developers CAN do is create opportunities. More on this at the end.

The Driftless Foods vegetable processing and freezing facility continues to emerge. The group held its first grower information meeting this week. The idea was to tell people what the process looked like right now for growing vegetables for the new plant in the future. There is a link at the end to this article.

Editor Jim Massey of The Country Today Magazine did a great interview with Mark this week about his vision for Driftless Foods.

I thought this piece was especially good because Mark is highlighting that this is a market-based response to demand he himself is experiencing. As a proven entrepreneur and as a creative food innovator Mark is telling us what he and his peer-innovators need.

"Seven words on Olson's Renaissance Farm office wall explain some of the thinking behind the project.

'I Benefit, You Benefit, We All Benefit,' the phrase reads.

'If I (as a small producer) need something, [editor: processing to scale] then my peers need it as well,' he said. 'I have a friend who makes pasta. He and I do the same thing - we're out there driving around marketing our products. The idea is if you can get a group of people to work together then you could get economy of scale relatively quicker."

Yep. What Mark said.

I got to talk about our design a bit, but focused on the need to take action steps; "This is built to be replicated over and over," he said. "Everybody is saying, 'What if,' or, 'We should study this a little further,' " Terrien said. "We're saying let's not just talk about it, let's try it out. Let's put one foot in front of another and get something done."

Terrien said the idea is to build a 'hub-and-spoke system' with the freezer facility being the hub."

My favorite quote from Jim Massey's piece comes from Stan Gruszynski, State Director of USDA Rural Development in Wisconsin. Stan has watched our project grow and has been very generous with his counsel as well as the invitation last week to make a USDA presentation in Chippewa Falls (previous post)

Here is Stan, from the article: "I think rural Wisconsin is just on the cusp of getting into this sort of thing. Hospitals, for example, want to buy commodities, poultry and meat from the local community, but they need a consistent supply. Things like this could happen with agencies like ours providing some of the resources in the local community. I think it can be done."

Thanks very much to Jim Massey and The Country Today for this and for the very nice piece recently about our new Wisconsin Innovation Kitchen.

So, back to the grower information meetings we held last week for people interested in growing vegetables for the new processing plant.

Barry Adams from the Wisconsin State Journal did a nice piece about the meeting. He covered the topic nicely and also caught me red handed with my 'opportunities' agenda…

"'We're trying to make opportunities,' said Rick Terrien, executive director of the Iowa County Area Economic Development Corp.

Tom Novak, a dairy farmer from Highland, said he came to Wednesday's meeting out of curiosity.

'I'm looking for opportunities,' Novak said.

Jeremy Litchfield, 35, of Dodgeville grows a variety of vegetables that he sells to Sam & Maddies, where he is a cook, but would like to more than double the size of his acreage, which is now a three-quarter-acre plot of land. He says the proposed plant would be beneficial for growers.

'It's a way to keep their farms growing,' Litchfield said."

Rural economies are rich in entrepreneurs - every farmer is an entrepreneur. They want to grow. They want to innovate. Just as with Mark's quote above referring to the need for processing capacity, these entrepreneurs need opportunities and infrastructure to nurture their innovations and grow their businesses and to create jobs and invigorate their rural communities.

Economic developers can't make jobs, but they can make opportunities.

Sounds like a plan.


Country Today story about Driftless Foods by Jim Massey.

Wisconsin State Journal article about the first Driftless Foods grower information meeting by Barry Adams.


Wisconsin Economic Development Assn. (WEDA)

Recent article in The Country Today about the Wisconsin Innovation Kitchen by Jim Massey.

Mark's Renaissance Farm

Labels: artisan food processing, Driftless Foods, entrepreneurship, slow startups

USDA Rural Development

I greatly appreciated the invitation to give a presentation at a Wisconsin USDA Rural Development jobs forum last week in Chippewa Falls.

Wisconsin state Director Stan Gruszynski invited me to discuss our Iowa County initiative for doing rural economic development and making jobs.

I couldn't speak directly for Mark and the Driftless Development group (see below) of course. However the presentation centered on the design Mark and I have been working on this past year. (Now thrown into hyper-drive by the coolest bunch of scary-smart advocate/adventurers I've ever worked with.)

The gathering was called 'Forum for the Future… Pathways to Wisconsin Job Creation", and was held at Chippewa Valley Technical College. I'll link a couple of articles below.

Speaking only for myself, I told them having meetings about making jobs in rural economies was fine, but we needed action steps more than anything else. It was my position that we should start running market-based experiments that have a real chance of making jobs, especially in rural economies.

I said there will be mistakes and zigs and zags. I told them that's the REAL value of the experiment. What gets learned. What works. What (importantly!) doesn't work. After we finish prototyping this in Iowa County and the region, teams will be trained and in place to effectively ramp this up to make jobs and do economic development from the ground up in lots of widespread places.

The speaker before me, Scott Schultz, Executive Director of Wisconsin Farmer's Union, really set up the subject well. He talked about how strategic plans for making jobs and growing rural economies had been written and then executed poorly over the last decades, with clear losses across wide swaths of rural economic development. He called for trying new experiments that served all parts of ag, especially the 'ag in the middle' piece our project is designed for.

I really enjoyed this USDA Rural Development forum and am very grateful for the invitation.


Movement on the first vegetable processing and freezing hub in Highland.

Lawyers and money are on the move. Reminds me of Warren Zevon's wonderful title 'Send lawyers, guns and money', with vegetables instead of guns. My goodness, this feels refreshing after all the time laying groundwork and building the network.

Spring is in the air.

Granted, it takes a certain kind of wiring to be able to say that in Wisconsin in early February. That's why I so much appreciate the chance to work with Mark and the entire scary-smart leadership team contributing to this adventure.


New Hollandale Library open for business.

The good folks of Hollandale, in the beautiful Southeast part of Iowa County, opened their first library this week (pictured above). What a thing of wonder and beauty. Many congratulations to Hollandale and thank you very much for the chance to share your economic development ideas this week.

Creating experiments in job creation for rural economies.
Movement on our regional food processing model.
Best of all perhaps, a new library.

That's real progress.



Chippewa Valley Newspaper article, by Mark Gunderman

Chippewa Valley Community College Spotlight

Mark's Renaissance Farm

Wisconsin Farmer's Union

Chippewa Valley Tech College

Beautiful Hollandale, WI Iowa County, WI. Come grow with us.

Labels: artisan food processing, entrepreneurship, slow startups, startups

We had a very interesting statewide group meet at our Courthouse in Iowa County this week (the oldest working Courthouse in Wisconsin).

The group is called the Partnership for A Stronger Economy (PSE). It's a gathering of a wide range of private industry leaders, workforce leaders and an economic development leadership team from the Wisconsin Assembly that meets regularly to find truly new ways of doing business in Wisconsin.

I was honored to be asked to make the opening presentation. I got to discuss the Driftless Foods project and the economic development possibilities built into that design.

My wife, who was also my business partner for 20 years, says that I share raw data with everyone, generally as fast as I get it in.

A friend was at meeting in Washington DC recently and was able to hear the President speak about rural economic development. He was telling me about it on my cell phone as I was walking over to give my presentation to the PSE. I understood him to say that the President had heard about our project at the meeting and had cited it as valuable.

So I mentioned it during my PSE presentation, of course. I joked about my new friend Mr. Obama, but I said I had to check on it further. I did the next day and my friend who was at that meeting told me that the President hadn't cited our specific project (Darn! What an endorsement that would have been…). My friend said that he felt the President indicated that projects like the ones we are trying to do in Iowa County would be an example of what the federal government should be supporting.

I told my wife about the lost presidential endorsement and all she could say was, "Could you hold on to the raw data for just a little longer next time?"

We not only got to talk about Driftless Foods, but the PSE group also got to hear a brief overview of our new Wisconsin Innovation Kitchen from Tom Schraeder of The Hodan Center. This also gave Tom and I the chance to talk jointly about the entrepreneurship and economic development possibilities inherent in community access kitchens, particularly models based in centers for adults with disabilities.

I firmly believe the legislative economic development leaders present got a good understanding of the rural economic development landscape we're helping to design in Iowa County and Southwest Wisconsin. I thought our ideas got a very positive response.

Just wish we could have held on to that endorsement


Wisconsin's Partnership for A Stronger Economy (PSE)

PSE members

Hodan Center

Obama to Support Local and Organic Food Download PDF article article by Jim Slama, President of FamilyFarmed.org

Labels: artisan food processing, Driftless Foods, Wisconsin Innovation Kitchen

The magazine Country Today did a nice piece on the new Wisconsin Innovation Kitchen recently.

I know I'm pretty enthusiastic about the entrepreneurship possibilities of local foods, but Editor Jim Massey caught me bubbling it seems. And I thought I was toning it down.

New, sustainable enterprises and regional food systems can be created to profitably serve the rapidly growing market for local foods.

Our new Wisconsin Innovation Kitchen, operated by the Hodan Center, will be a piece of that puzzle. The work Mark Olson and friends have created with the Driftless Foods prototype will surely be a vital and important prototype for larger regional food system replications.

These are not the ONLY pieces of the puzzle. A lot of parts go into a system. These are just our contributions to the discussion. We're doing experiments to help build reproducible regional food systems. The plan is to take that knowledge and help reproduce it with local groups working in their own foodsheds to create platforms for local foods entrepreneurship.

Here's a sampling from the Country Today article…

"Rick Terrien bubbles with enthusiasm when he talks about the economic development possibilities a new community kitchen will bring to Iowa County.

Terrien is so enthusiastic about the project that he's moving his economic development office into the building.

'This is such a fabulous story. I can't tell you how much I'm looking forward to it,' he said."

What I think is so compelling about our new Wisconsin Innovation Kitchen, The Farm Market Kitchen in Algoma, and others that will be opening soon, is the opportunity to do so much good in so many directions.

Talked with John Aue from Butter Mountain organic potatoes this morning at the market about this. Between the Innovation Kitchen and Driftless Foods, we can potentially create possibilities for new, young farmers to come on line and food entrepreneurs to have easier, affordable access to the infrastructure, both hard (buildings and equipment) and soft (branding, marketing and pre-built sales channels). Along the way we can help existing farmers experiment in diversifying some of their operations, build in conservation enhancements, and get some cash flow going back towards our farmers and our rural communities.

These experiments won't get everything right. There will be value knowing what doesn't work also. However, I'm convinced the Driftless Foods project will become a replicable prototype for regional food systems. I'm also convinced that the Wisconsin Innovation Kitchen will open up new small-scale local foods processing opportunities that can be replicated elsewhere. I believe these opportunities can be profitable for all involved, especially the lucky consumers!

Mark Olson always says, 'There is genius in action'. Yep.


The Country Today article by Editor Jim Massey

Innovation Kitchen link at the new Iowa County EDC web site.

Butter Mountain organic specialty potatoes

The Farm Market Kitchen in Algoma, WI

Photo is of the Wisconsin Innovation Kitchen on Dec. 11, 2009. Getting closer!

Labels: artisan food processing, Driftless Foods, entrepreneurship, Innovation Kitchen, slow money, slow startups, Wisconsin Innovation Kitchen

A friend sent me to a good Business Week article ("Entrepreneurs Keep the Local Food Movement Hot", by John Tozzi, Dec. 18, 2009) discussing a new study called "Community Food Enterprise: Local Success in a Global Marketplace". The study created multiple case studies focusing on the economic and community benefits of local and regional food enterprises.

I like that this study includes a focus on local ownership of food businesses. Developing local ownership of local food infrastructure is at the core of the Driftless project.

Here's what Woody Tasch from Slow Money has to say on the subject: "Advocates for local food say success depends on nurturing an interlocking network of small companies that produce, process, distribute, and sell food." Tasch continues," "We as a society and as an economy need to start optimizing for a large number of small things, not just relying on a small number of large things."

The study was a project of the Wallace Foundation, funded by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and The W.K. Kellogg Foundation.

Here is an overview: "The local food movement is now spreading globally, yet is not well understood. To many, local food is exclusively about proximity, with discriminating consumers demanding higher quality food grown, caught, processed, cooked, and sold by people they know and trust. But an equally important part of local food is local ownership of food businesses. This report is about the full range of locally owned businesses involved in food, whether they are small or big, whether they are primary producers or manufacturers or retailers, whether their focus is local or global markets. We call these businesses community food enterprises (CFEs)."

"This report provides a detailed field report on the performance of 24 CFEs, half inside the United States and half international. We show that CFEs represent a huge diversity of legal forms, scales, activities, and designs."

They found 15 strategies for creating success consistent with their community character:

-Hard Work
-Innovation
-Local Delivery
-Aggregation
-Vertical Integration
-Shareholder Loyalty
-Speed
-Better Access
-Better Taste
-Better Story
-Better Stewardship
-Better Service
-Revitalizing Local Economies
-More Community Spirit
-More Social Change

As almost 5 years of posts on this blog will attest, this list above matches sustainable work practices I know to work.

I have not finished the full report, but this looks to be a wonderful effort toward identifying measurable economic and social benefit that arises from the development of Community Food Enterprises (CFEs). The individual case study I've been paying close attention to and highly recommend is their "Zingerman Community of Businesses".

As we work on our CFEs in the Iowa County area in the coming year, - especially the Driftless project - this kind of empirical support will be highly valuable.

There is a strong demand for local and regional foods and not enough infrastructure to help suppliers meet that demand.

Local foods and regional food systems are emerging as one of the hottest of all topics in economic development. What a time to be a local foods entrepreneur, investor, or - best of all - consumer!

Happy New Year 2010!


Community Food Enterprise report

Business Week Article, Entrepreneurs Keep the Local Food Movement Hot.

Slow Money Alliance

Thanks for the Business Week article tip to Neil Lerner, a friend and Director of the Madison area Small Business Development Center.

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Labels: artisan food processing, business plans, entrepreneurship, new product development, slow money, slow startups

The idea I've been working on this year is that it's possible to build economic development landscapes. That is, design systems that let people enter the process of economic development at multiple points. You don't plant a tree or two. You try to create a sustainable landscape in which a wide range of interrelated opportunities for growth exist.

In my current job, because of the amazing assets we have in place, I'm working to make Iowa County a premier location to learn about and participate in agriculture and local foods entrepreneurship.

Our Wisconsin Innovation Kitchen will allow beginning food entrepreneurs to get into the game professionally, with greatly lowered barriers to entry.

Existing small food enterprises can use the kitchen to reach new, higher levels of quality, sales and profitability.

At this end of the landscape spectrum there will be many, many points of entry for individuals and small businesses.

At the other end of this spectrum the Driftless Foods project is moving forward. This has felt like the best startup idea I've ever seen since the first moments that Mark and I started talking.

Driftless Foods offers a chance for some serious meta-level good. There is a strong component to helping farmers stay on their farms by building the infrastructure they need to process local foods at a scale that can profitably support regions. It's a way to help people to get into farming and to help existing farmers securely diversify their sources of income.

The project recently got a very nice recommendation from the Wisconsin Secretary of Agriculture, Mr. Rod Nilsestuen.

"The Wisconsin Department of Agriculture, Trade and Consumer Protection strongly supports Driftless Foods and The Iowa County Economic Development Corporation in their efforts to create a vegetable processing and freezing facility.

A facility such as this will help meet the growing demand for locally grown foods, a demand that is increasingly important to the vitality of Wisconsin agriculture.

I firmly believe that Wisconsin's future is tied to the success of our agricultural sector, and the success of that sector depends on innovation and diversity. We need to keep farmland in farming and farm families on their farms. This project can help us do both. It also creates new job opportunities in your region and opens new economic development possibilities.

I can also see in this project the opportunity to create a model for processing locally grown foods that other communities can follow. This model promises to celebrate local foods, be profitable, and return value directly to the producers, the communities they live in, and the regions that support them."

What a wonderful, insightful show of support. Thank you very much, Mr. Secretary!

So with the Wisconsin Innovation Kitchen opening at one end of the spectrum and Driftless Foods launching at the other end of the spectrum, we've got a fairly diverse development landscape underway.

In the middle of that spectrum are some really delightful co-conspirators helping to knit this effort together.

We met today to plan the first information sessions for our regional growers. This will all take varying amounts of time. The Innovation Kitchen will be open in the Spring for food processing on a small to moderate scale. For the larger scale of Driftless Foods growers need to plan well in advance for joining this kind of enterprise.

We will have 3 informational meetings focusing on Driftless Foods in January and February. Because this is a diversified effort, we will also be able to support interested growers with information about the Innovation Kitchen.

The first two dates are not quite set, but the details for the third meeting are in place. We will dedicate the February 24th Entrepreneur Club meeting in Dodgeville to this grower information session. I'll post details below.

So, the development landscape grows across the spectrum and we can soon begin inviting people in.

This has been an amazing year watching and learning from this experiment in economic development landscapes.



Letter of support from Wisconsin Secretary of Agriculture Rod Nilsestuen

Link to the Iowa County Entrepreneur and Inventor Club page. Our Feb. 24th meeting will focus on opportunities for regional growers being created by the Driftless Foods project.

Photos are from our magical Shake Rag Alley in Mineral Point. Our EDC was able to host the quarterly meeting of the Thrive Economic Development Pros at Shake Rag Alley last Friday. Our meeting was in the replica 1840s carpenter's cabinet shop. Karla and her great team had it beautifully decorated to receive area children for Santa's visit the next day so the atmosphere was great. Thanks to all who came and shared beautiful Iowa County with us!

Mark Olson and Renaissance Farm

Labels: artisan food processing, Driftless Foods, entrepreneurship, new product development, platforms, Wisconsin Innovation Kitchen

The opportunity for entrepreneurship in local and regional foods surpasses anything I've seen in my 35+ year career as a working entrepreneur. It's like software, only sustainable.

In the world of local and regional foods there is a wildly expanding demand and an impossibly small capacity to supply this demand. The supply side - the people who grow and process these local foods - need help to get to a scale that is sufficient to begin meeting this demand.

It's a big subject with serious economic development implications for rural and urban areas worldwide.

My goal is to help launch our new Innovation Kitchen efficiently and with high value for all involved. I'm going to need to convey a lot of information across a wide variety of subject areas as clearly as I can.

That's why I took the Wisconsin Acidified Foods Training Course and passed my exams so as to be certified, as trained in: "microbiology of canned foods, principles of acidified foods, thermal processing, food process sanitation, facilities requirements, state and federal regulations, record keeping and process monitoring."

Not everyone will need this course to become an artisan food processor but many will. For anyone in Wisconsin thinking about this, I urge you to take this course (linked below). It's taught by Dr. Barbara Ingham, from the Department of Food Science at the University of Wisconsin. Dr. Ingham teaches this course 6 or 7 times per year around the state.

I could not recommend this course any higher if you are considering any kind of artisan food enterprise in Wisconsin.

All foods with any water content have a pH. This measures the acidity of that food. A pH of 4.6 is the magic number. Foods that are pH 4.6 or lower have enough acidic content to be assured of safety. Shelf stability of acidified canned foods is ensured by a vacuum seal and adequate thermal processing.

Artisan food entrepreneurs utilizing these kinds of foods who want to work from the Innovation Kitchen will need to pass these exams first. After taking this course I sincerely believe that this is not some kind of onerous intervention into free enterprise. Just the opposite. Being part of a system like this - one that inspires the highest quality, safest and most interesting food products is a branding windfall.

If you have an interest in this subject, this course is not only fun, but it is densely packed with information that Dr. Ingham shares in ways that are understandable and easy to remember. Also the take-away binders contain printouts of everything relevant to your journey as an acidified foods for later reference.

We were also very fortunate to have Dave Steinhardt, who is a Food Safety Supervisor with the WI Department of Agriculture, Trade and Consumer Protection (DATCP). Dave answered a wide range of questions regarding the inspection protocols that our artisan food processors will need to follow when working in the Innovation Kitchen.

This was a wonderful course. I can't recommend it highly enough.

For those of you in other areas, I would strongly recommend you search out this kind of training. It is in your own best interests. You will create better food products, and you will have a better business because of it.

Not all processors will need this kind of course. Some may need even more advanced courses, depending on the food. Some processors may require less training. My point is that you can't just wander into the subject and open up shop. You'll need to find out what training is needed and learn how to work in a community-access processing kitchen. It's not hard. You just have to do it, for all the right reasons.

So, back to the start. I believe there is a terrific entrepreneurship opportunity in artisan food processing, especially with a focus on local and regional foods.

If you have an interest in this field, start organizing yourself to get in the game. Costs to enter are low, demand is high, there appears to be a good opportunity for profit and - if this course is an indication - artisan food processing can be a lot of fun.


Download the 2010 Wisconsin Acidified Canned Foods Training for Small Food Processors brochure and registration form. PDF format. 164 KB

Labels: artisan food processing, bootstrapping, entrepreneurship, Innovation Kitchen, slow startups, startups