SustainableWork

A really good idea hit a couple of weeks back.

I’ve been trying to write it down accurately here, but getting my arms around all the possibilities has been a bigger job than I expected.

So I’m going to give up on fully describing it and get the idea out for consideration.

The Wisconsin Innovation Kitchen is a world class food processing facility in an unbelievably beautiful location. It is also a teaching facility where people can learn about artisan food processing.

You could give your loved one the gift of an artisan food career. This would be ‘experiential gifting’ at a very high level of coolness for the right persons lucky enough to get one of these packages.

The goal is twofold.

The first goal is to nurture people into their own professional, profitable, enjoyable food enterprise. The gift of a career in artisan foods. The gift of an opportunity to become a food entrepreneur.

The second goal, when appropriate, would be to have the Innovation Kitchen serve as the preparation site for those new food lines.

Artisan food entrepreneurs could live anywhere in the world and run their production, packaging, storage, and distribution through the Innovation Kitchen. Being virtual at its yummy best.

It’s the first time we’re trying this so we’ll be screening for people with patience.

The outline is that a person with a beloved family recipe(s) would be given the gift of an opportunity to start a small business to make and market that recipe commercially.

The Innovation Kitchen can do the information sharing and early training through distance learning tools. We can help with business planning and development as well as recipe development and testing. We can also supply purchasing support. When ready, people can come to the Innovation Kitchen for hands on training, using commercial equipment to prepare their recipes for commercial sale.

My goal is to run a test program this year. We will limit the number of these ‘artisan food career’ packages to 100.

I think it’s a great idea. I’d love to give it to myself, and that’s just how we’re going to design this project. We’re setting it up so this opportunity is made available in ways that fit into people’s lives. And we’re setting it up to empower people to experiment with artisan food entrepreneurship.

I write a lot about the value of slow startups. This opportunity at the Innovation Kitchen is an almost perfect example of a slow startup in action.

Just like slow foods, you can take your time creating a new enterprise with great local ingredients. You nurture it through early gestations. If you give yourself time to grow your enterprise, you get to live out that idea about the journey being the most important part of life not the destination.

This year give the gift of an artisan food career.



The Wisconsin Innovation Kitchen

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

The Grand Opening of the Innovation Kitchen is behind us and the future is unfolding quickly.

The Innovation Kitchen is already processing local crops directly for the local farmers who grew them. First batch was delicious dilly beans! We also have a wonderful recipe for fresh tomato salsa that we will soon begin processing for local farms.

Strong interest is emerging from existing food companies who not only want the Innovation Kitchen to process for them, but importantly, many of these are asking us to work with our local farms to purchase the produce these food companies need. These request are for thousands of pounds of specific, locally grown crops, some in quantities over 10,000 pounds.

We're keeping track of what the Innovation Kitchen is buying locally as well. The list is building quickly. We started with a purchase of 2,300 pounds of rhubarb from a local grower. They have purchased hundreds of pounds of locally grown beans. Another 3,000 pounds of broccoli will be coming through in a few weeks from a great local grower (yum!). And this is just starting.

A large batch of local broccoli is also coming in this week to inaugurate the new 42 rack commercial dehydrator. This will allow the Innovation Kitchen to ramp up local purchases even further.

This week we have a specialty foods distributor coming up to meet with local growers with the goal of creating private-label brands based on farm-identified ingredients that can be prepared at the Innovation Kitchen and sold through their sales network in a nearby metropolitan area.

The Wisconsin Innovation Kitchen rapidly turned the corner from talking about the possibilities to walking the walk.

We are enabling existing food businesses to grow by helping minimize their capital costs as well as operating costs. Our family farms are already producing branded products to help them utilize more of their crops and grow their enterprises year round. The Kitchen is also empowering all kinds of new food entrepreneurs with amazingly innovative ideas.

The Innovation Kitchen is already making significant commercial contributions to the Iowa County area and beyond.

And we've been open for less than a month.

What a joy to watch this unfold.

Labels: artisan food career, artisan food processing, entrepreneurship, Innovation Kitchen, Wisconsin Innovation Kitchen

Many people are coming to the idea of food entrepreneurship for the first time. Owning and running an artisan food business is a compelling idea.

The Wisconsin Innovation Kitchen has many different entry points where people can enter the system and experiment with ways to grow an existing food business or start a new one.

I have a strong recommendation for new food entrepreneurs. KISS (Keep it simple, Sam).

Creating a recipe that is a simple dry-mix is the easiest, least risky, and least costly way for new food entrepreneurs to utilize a commercial kitchen. You can always get fancier and perhaps more profitable as you learn, but you've got to survive to get there and dry-mix recipes offer a relatively low-risk way to start your enterprise.

As anyone who has been around my presentations about 'best ways to use the Kitchen' will know that I am a big fan of the dehydration step for entrepreneurs new to food processing.

It is the simplest, and among the least expensive ways to preserve food, including nutritional values.

New food entrepreneurs should strongly consider utilizing the Innovation Kitchen through this dehydrator.

If you can dehydrate a signature ingredient - perhaps an heirloom vegetable or fruit - you've made it safe to store as a 'shelf stable' product. That means it can be displayed on a store shelf with no additional support such as refrigeration for perishable items.

Once you've got your signature ingredient safely stabilized you can create a mix using you signature veggie or fruit or herbs in many unique dry-mix recipes. A dry-mix recipe would be a shelf stable package of dry soup mix, or a baked dessert mix, or a waffle mix and so on.

The label can then be printed with your logo and recipe name in a way that highlights 'Featuring (Your Name) Berries!'

I think this path is especially suited for family farms who would like to market their farm under its own brand, featuring its special ingredients.

Dry-mix production can be set up to do short production runs so the investment in first test-batches can be minimized. It is also significantly easier to get your product accepted at stores if it is a shelf stable dry-mix product.

This idea of dehydration of a key ingredient, then used in a dry-mix recipe is exactly what I would do first.

For new food entrepreneurs, this dehydration/dry-mix step gives you maximum value for the least cost.

Dry-mix recipes are almost endless, serving the needs of every meal and every moment in between. There is also the entire world of dry-mix marinades and rubs and seasonings, and on and on. I think there is also a great potential for creating many new dry-mix recipes for all kinds of new uses we haven't even thought of yet.

If you are a new food entrepreneur thinking about the Wisconsin Innovation Kitchen, dehydration and dry-mix recipes are paths I'd recommend.

Of course, any products in the existing dry-mix line of delicious Papa Pat's Farmhouse Recipes can be private labeled and resold throughout the U.S. If you are a distributor or would like to learn how your organization can utilize this program please get in touch.

Speaking of labels, we are setting up a private-label program right now for organizations that would like to distribute a delicious dry-mix package of Creamy Potato Soup as a business or holiday gift. The label can be printed with your custom message. This recipe is from Papa Pat's Farmhouse Recipes and is one of their very best sellers. The label will also indicate that your gift helps support the Wisconsin Innovation Kitchen, The Hodan Center and our Iowa County EDC.


Wisconsin Innovation Kitchen

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

As the Wisconsin Innovation Kitchen blossoms, our new Kitchen Partner program is also emerging.

This week a Madison TV station did a nice piece that highlighted a few of the many different paths there are to utilizing the Innovation Kitchen opportunity.

The piece featured our first 3 Innovation Kitchen Partners, Sue Brunett of Flavor Fling, Matt D'Amour of Inside Out Wellness, and The Warricks, Janet and John and Jack, founders of the confectioner Cocomand. (TV naturals, all!) Many other Kitchen Partners are emerging from fun, unexpected directions.

Here's some quotes from the piece (links below):

"The Wisconsin Innovation Kitchen in Mineral Point is giving entrepreneurs and small businesses a chance to succeed by providing the facilities and resources needed to get off the ground."

Sue: "This facility will allow us to do a lot of collection and processing of food as it emerges from the garden, and then allow us to use it year-round in a product, as a stable product on the shelf."

Matt: "In order to get it into a licensed retail shop, you have to have certain certifications and all the requirements that must be met. That's when I started to look for a place to produce it out of."

Janet: "They buy so much here, sugar, large quantities. Purchasing through them, we can get it at a much better price."

I loved the way this piece opened: "For those who have a 'one of a kind recipe' in the kitchen, turning that special dish into a business is not an easy journey. But one professional kitchen is helping upstart businesses get their feet in the door."

Welcome to our first three Kitchen Partners!

And to everyone else, welcome to the Wisconsin Innovation Kitchen!

We're organizing ways to bring new Kitchen Partners into this opportunity.

Join us!



The Wisconsin Innovation Kitchen in Mineral Point is giving entrepreneurs and small businesses a chance to succeed. WISC TV 3, Madison, WI

Print and video of this story on Channel3000.com

The Wisconsin Innovation Kitchen

Labels: artisan food processing, bootstrapping, entrepreneurship, innovation, Innovation Kitchen, microentrepreneurs, rural microentrepreneurs, Wisconsin Innovation Kitchen

Join us for our Iowa County Entrepreneur Club July 28th. 6 PM

Social gathering 5:30


July eClub meeting:
Food Packaging 101.

Curious about growing or starting a food business?

Have you ever wondered how the experts design and pick the right packaging for successful food products?

This month will be valuable to anyone growing or considering a food based business. Phil Strause from Infinity Packaging is an expert in the vital area of food packaging. Phil will walk us through the process the pros follow when helping customers choose and specify the right packaging for their food product starting with the basics.

Phil will briefly cover packaging safety and handling information, potential regulations, requirements and permits as well a packaging help for shipping, distribution and sales.

Bring all your food packaging questions! Phil will help us take our projects from idea to effective food packaging. Food Packaging 101 is designed to answer your questions. Join us!

What: Food Packaging 101
When: Wed. July 28, 2010 6 PM (Social gathering 5:30)
Where: Wisconsin Innovation Kitchen
851 Dodge St. Mineral Point, WI 53565


Save the upcoming dates:

Aug. 25 - Labeling solutions for food products (@ WI Innovation Kitchen)
Sep. 22 – Ways to plan and finance your business startup or expansion
(@ Stonefield Apts. in Dodgeville)
Oct. 27 - Entrepreneur Intellectual Property 101
(@ Stonefield Apts. in Dodgeville)


Location and Meeting Details:

Wednesday, July 28, 2010. There will be a social time beginning at 5:30 and the meeting will begin at 6 PM. The location is at the Wisconsin Innovation Kitchen, 851 Dodge St., Mineral Point WI. The event is free to the public.

Networking among attendees will be encouraged in the evening's program. "Our goal is to grow our network of entrepreneurs, small businesses, innovators 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 opportunities. The group meets on a monthly basis, usually the fourth Wednesday of the month.

Join us! Bring a friend!


Iowa County, Wisconsin
Come Grow With Us



Iowa County area Entrepreneur Club

Wisconsin Innovation Kitchen information

Labels: artisan food processing, Entrepreneur Club, entrepreneurship, slow startups, startups, Wisconsin Innovation Kitchen

I knew of KIVA.org but not the details until my friends Larry and Carol gave me a gift certificate which translated into funds to lend to micro entrepreneurs worldwide through KIVA.

Kiva connects people through lending to alleviate poverty.

What a rewarding journey that gift has provided ever since. This post is my current KIVA report.

Overall, Kiva.org. As of December 25, 2009, Kiva has distributed $110,671,610 in loans from 631,345 lenders. A total of 157,207 loans have been funded. The average loan size is $401.66. Its current repayment rate is 98.13%

My first post about Kiva and my microloans in December of 2007.

Check out the results!

Existing /past loans:

Chantal Dolou. Lomé, Togo. 100% repaid!

Allahverdy Kuliyev. Absheron Region, Azerbaijan 100% repaid!

Srey Touch Nuon Group. Chheu Teal Phluos Village, Cambodia. 41% repaid. Right on target.

Josefina Aurora Castro Barrenechea. Cochabamba, Bolivia. 24% repaid. Right on target.

New loan:
Canal De Bendicion 6 Group. La Romana, Dominican Republic. $1,550 loan request. Now fully funded.

This is all funded from a $100 gift from friends.

KIVA.org home page. Check it out!

Labels: entrepreneurship, innovation, KIVA, microentrepreneurs, rural microentrepreneurs, slow startups, startups

Oh my gosh. We expected about 250 people to attend last Sunday's Grand Opening of the Wisconsin Innovation Kitchen. More than 600 wonderful visitors joined us.

The media got it and helped the discussion in very useful ways. I'll put links below.

My favorite news sources for information about sustainable work in my region is the Sustainable Times, published and edited by George Zens. George did an excellent summation of the possibilities inherent in a facility like the Wisconsin Innovation Kitchen in this month's issue. 10,000 copies are available through 350 locations in south central Wisconsin. The photos and the writing are excellent!

(one minor exception: George quotes me as saying there are 47 trillion ways to use this facility. I actually said about 47 trillion. I think there may be more… )

Some of the links below go right to the source. The TV links need to be searched using page numbers at the bottom of the video player section. Scroll back to find our date (July 11, 2010) and the title noted in the post below.

What a remarkable 'blessing' as Hodan Center Executive Director Tom Schraeder referred to our Grand Opening. I'm going to build a page on the Innovation Kitchen site that as a photo gallery of the Grand Opening and will post that link soon.

In no particular order here is a group of links to media about the Grand Opening of the Wisconsin Innovation Kitchen.

Enjoy! Everyone at the Wisconsin Innovation Kitchen, The Hodan Center and the Iowa County EDC sure did!

Thank you everyone who visited last Sunday or is just joining our journey.

Welcome to Iowa County Wisconsin and our wonderful new story!

Media coverage of the Wisconsin Innovation Kitchen

TV:

Our first Wisconsin Innovation Kitchen TV interview. 7/9/10. "If you've ever dreamed of growing or starting your own food business but didn't have the capital to start from scratch, opportunity may await you with the Grand Opening of the Wisconsin Innovation Kitchen." Thank you Carleen Wild, NBC TV 15 and NBC15.com

Your stories: Grand Opening for the Innovation Kitchen. 7/11/10. "In addition to allowing emerging or established food entrepreneurs access to the facility, the Wisconsin Innovation Kitchen also has business and marketing assistance available to its clients." Thank you Chris Papst, NBC 15 and NBC15.com

Innovation Kitchen offers opportunity for entrepreneurs. 7/11/10. "Anyone can prepare their own recipes in the one million dollar kitchen, and can actually sell them. The facility also has its own food processing services. Owners say the kitchen will create jobs and give farmers and food entrepreneurs access to tools and equipment." Thank you TV 27 and WKOW.com


Print:

Wisconsin Innovation Kitchen will be boon to region. "This is a big shiny spaceship that has landed in rural Wisconsin". Wisconsin State Journal. 7/9/10. Thank you Jane Burns and MADISON.COM

Sustainable Times. July 2010 (No. 66), page 1. Great story and photos. Now available at 350 outlets across south central Wisconsin. Not yet online. Will link ASAP Thank you Sustainable Times.


Wisconsin Innovation Kitchen Offers Opportunity for Food Entrepreneurs. "It's a food Ferrari." Wisconsin Entrepreneurs' Network. Thanks WEN network.

Iowa County's Hodan Center mixes business and service to help disabled adults Great article in the Wisconsin State Journal about the Hodan Center, featured on the weekend of our Wisconsin Innovation Kitchen Grand Opening. Thank you Jane Burns and MADISON.COM

Radio:

New enterprise hopes to bring fresh, local food to the masses. Scroll the Wisconsin Public Radio archives for 7/12/10. "A first of its kind commercial kitchen is opening in Mineral Point this week. The goal of the Wisconsin Innovation Kitchen is to help family farmers and small restaurants get their specialty foods on to supermarket shelves in southern Wisconsin." Thank you Gil Halsted and WPR.


Photo credits

Top photo courtesy of The Dodgeville Chronicle Thank you Jean Berns Jones!

Bottom photo courtesy of E. Terrien


The Wisconsin Innovation Kitchen is open for business!

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

We had our first TV interview about the Wisconsin Innovation Kitchen today on NBC 15 in Madison, with Host Carleen Wild.

To see this, go to the link below.

There is a video player on the right. Below the player are icons for individual stories. When you scroll over the icon you can read the description.

Ours says "VIDEO: Wisconsin Innovation Kitchen 7/9/10". Three minutes long.

Because this aired this morning it has been bumped to inner pages by newer pieces. You will need to scroll backward to find the Innovation Kitchen interview, using the links below the story icons.

Thank you very much Carleen Wild, NBC TV 15 and NBC15.com!



NBC15.com podcast. Wisconsin Innovation Kitchen Interview. Scroll back to 7/9/10 and this title.

Photo above is of our Hobart Vertical Chopper Mixer (VCM). This also mixes bread and baking doughs at commercial scale.

Labels: Innovation Kitchen, Wisconsin Innovation Kitchen

The Grand Opening of the Wisconsin Innovation Kitchen is next Sunday, July 11.

I've been working to hone down the introduction of the facility to something useful that people can use to take action steps.

This will surely morph as new information arrives, but this is where we are headed as the Innovation Kitchen launches this week:

Overview:

• A new 10,000 square foot commercial food processing kitchen at 851 Dodge St., Mineral Point in Iowa County, WI. Opening July 11, 2010.

• Owned by the Hodan Center, a center supporting adults with disabilities.

• Their food lines, sold under the Papa Pat's Farmhouse Recipes brand, are sold in more than 700 stores in 26 states.

• Their new kitchen to be shared with food businesses and food entrepreneurs and the wider community.

• State-inspected, community-shared commercial kitchen strategically located at the heart of 35 million people.

• Only community shared kitchen in the U.S. with professional food processing staff available.

• The Innovation Kitchen staff can provide all services needed to professionally prepare recipes for commercial sale. Services include, purchasing, preparation, processing, packaging, labeling, storage, distribution, as well as in-house business, marketing and sales support.

• With appropriate certifications Innovation Kitchen Partners can rent the Innovation Kitchen on an hourly basis to process their own recipes.

• Four separate preparation process can be carried out simultaneously: baking, canning, dehydration, and dry mix production.

• In-house business support is available through our Entrepreneur In Residence program.


Three key opportunities:

1. Existing food businesses can grow their enterprises and create new jobs using shared infrastructure, equipment, and services. We help others grow and create jobs.

2. New food businesses can startup affordably in a state-certified commercial kitchen. We have Partner programs to support most kinds of business startups.

3. Non-food businesses and organizations can support their own businesses as well as local foods. We can private label local food products using your brand and logo.


Four Partner Programs:
Two Primary. Two Community Support

Partners create mutual support and benefit.

- PRIMARY PARTNERS:

1. Preparation Partners. The Wisconsin Innovation Kitchen prepares your recipe for you.

2. Processing Partners. You prepare your recipe in the Wisconsin Innovation Kitchen.


- COMMUNITY SUPPORT PARTNERS:

3. Event / Education Partners. You produce a food related special event utilizing the Wisconsin Innovation Kitchen.

4. Purchasing Partners. We provide ingredients, packaging and related food processing materials for Partners working in the kitchen or Partners in the community needing commercial quantities of food grade supplies for their own operations.

Wisconsin Innovation Kitchen

Labels: artisan food processing, bootstrapping, entrepreneurship, Innovation Kitchen, Wisconsin Innovation Kitchen

Iowa County and our entire region is getting set for the Grand Opening of the Wisconsin Innovation Kitchen in Mineral Point on July 11.

Here is the first photo tour of the kitchen equipment. We posted this tour to the site map late today.

Tour equipment and capabilities at the Innovation Kitchen.

Labels: Innovation Kitchen, slow startups, Wisconsin Innovation Kitchen