Executive Q&A: Rick Terrien is dedicated to helping people start businesses

Jane Burns, of the Wisconsin State Journal wrote a good piece about our work in this Sunday's paper.

A great opening sentence: "Rick Terrien is always starting something."

Ms. Burns closed the interview with a realistic outline of my ideas about 'slow startups':

"I'm a glass-half-full guy. I've never seen more opportunities in my entire life, and not just in food. Entrepreneurs fix things that are broken and if you can't see things that are broken, you're not looking. The problem comes when you promise people they can be Donald Trump and that they can do it quickly.

My job is to slow them down, but start them. Because it's going to take longer doesn't mean don't start. It means start now. Put a toe in. Make a few mistakes. And it's pretty unlikely you're going to become Donald Trump. On the other hand, you can create a business that will support your family and your community.

I think it's a thrilling time to be an entrepreneur."


Wisconsin State Journal interview link. "Rick Terrien is dedicated to helping people start businesses."

Wisconsin Innovation Kitchen

Iowa County Area Economic Development, Come Grow With Us!

Upcoming presentation at FamilyFarmed Expo, March 17: 'Building Urban Social Enterprises.'

I am honored to be joining a panel presentation at the next FamilyFarmed Expo in Chicago on March 17.

I'll be making a presentation under the heading, 'Building Urban Social Enterprises'.

My focus will be on exploring new urban/rural partnerships built around small scale, collaborative food processing networks.

The FamilyFarmed Expo is called 'The Midwest's Premier Good Food Event'. I'm grateful for the invitation and look forward to discussing our emerging 3-facility food processing and distribution alliance in South and Southwest Wisconsin.

Our panel is on Thursday, March 17 which "..features our world-class 'Financing Farm to Fork' conference supporting the local food movement by encouraging investment in farm and food production, processing, and distribution businesses."

"Confirmed speakers include Gary Hirshberg, Founder and CEO of Stonyfield Farm, Will Allen, Farmer and CEO of Growing Power, Michael Bashaw, Midwest President Whole Foods Market, Open Table Founder Chuck Templeton, Financier Andy Whitman, University of Chicago's Linda Darragh, FamilyFarmed.org President Jim Slama, Fresh Taste Director Karen Lehman, and many more."

The FamilyFarmed Expo is Co-sponsored by the Chicago Booth School of Business at the University of Chicago.

Please join us if you can. Links below.

Thanks for the invitation to present at this year's FamilyFarmed Expo.

Looks like a great opportunity to learn new stories and tell a few.



FamilyFarmed Expo home page.

Financing Farm To Fork Conference, Thursday March 17 at the FamilyFarmed Expo.

Chicago Booth School of Business at the University of Chicago.

The University of Chicago Alumni Association was a 20-plus year, much beloved customer (and friend!) of our first business, Banner Graphics. Through that time the alumni offices were in the Robie House, a beautiful, landmark Frank Lloyd Wright designed home, now part of the campus.

Inside the Minds of Great Entrepreneurs

When I had the good fortune to be teaching entrepreneurship through Waukesha County Technical College and its great Small Business Center, I thought one of the significant missing pieces of that subject was the simple act of giving people permission to try, to act. Much of my curriculum was built around establishing ways people could give themselves that permission.

The cover story of the new Inc. Magazine for February 2011, is “Inside the Minds of Great Entrepreneurs”. I thought there was some excellent advice for taking action steps in the largely unknown space of innovation and business development.

If you’re on the sidelines thinking about starting a new enterprise it can be daunting to consider all the ‘rules’ that seem to be required to take the entrepreneurship step.

A new study looking for what distinguishes great entrepreneurs provides some highly valuable advice – and especially, permission - to think big and act fast.

Dr. Saras Sarasvathy at the Darden School of Business, at University of Virginia compared highly successful entrepreneurs to professional managers at major global corporations.

I recommend the article and the study, both linked below.

There are some great quotes to consider if you think you need to have everything locked-down and well known before acting (emphasis added by me):

“Somebody once told me the only thing you need is a customer. Instead of asking all the questions, I’d try and make some sales. I’d learn a lot, you know: which people, what were the obstacles, what were the questions, which prices work better. Even before I started production. So my market research would actually be hands-on selling.”

“…pick your partners and package yourself early on before you have to put a lot of capital out. Chief among those influential partners are first customers. The entrepreneurs anticipated customer help on product design, sales, and identifying suppliers. Some even saw their first customer as their best investor.”

And my favorite: “Entrepreneurs fret less about competitors, Sarasvathy explains, because they see themselves not in the thick of a market but on the fringe of one, or as creating a new market entirely. ‘They are like farmers planting a seed and nurturing it’, she says.”

If you think you need permission to take some actions steps, think again. The entrepreneurs Dr. Sarasvathy interviewed all had at least 15 years of entrepreneurial experience, have started multiple companies – both successes and failures – and have taken at least one company public. All were running companies they had founded and all had current revenues between $200 million and $6.5 billion across multiple industries.

“Sarasvathy concluded that master entrepreneurs rely on what she calls effectual reasoning. Brilliant improvisers, the entrepreneurs don’t start out with concrete goals. Instead they constantly assess how to use their personal strengths and whatever resources they have at hand to develop goals on the fly, while creatively reacting to contingencies. “

Amen. Seems like a good place to end, using text from the masthead of this Sustainable Work site: This site is about creating sustainable startups and growing emerging enterprises. It's about developing successful new products and innovating existing ones. Sustainable work means creating valuable solutions that fix real problems. Sustainable work means creating business processes that make you, your enterprise, and the world a better place. You can do it. Welcome.


How Great Entrepreneurs Think, Inc. Magazine. February, 2011. Written by Leigh Buchanan,

Dr. Sarasvathy’s full case study

Dr. Saras Sarasvathy at the Darden School of Business, University of Virginia.

Waukesha County Technical College, WCTC and their great Small Business Center

Join us. Heart of the Farm. Women in agriculture. January 28. Iowa County, WI

I'm looking forward to a presentation this Friday with our regional 'Heart of the Farm', women in agriculture conference.

I'm very grateful for the invitation and look forward to meeting new entrepreneurs and making new friends. We'll be focusing on opportunities for growing their farm enterprises in the Iowa County area, and beyond.

I've said it many times. This is the Renaissance age of entrepreneurship and it's just beginning. The opportunities in food and agriculture play a leading role.

This should be fun. Hope to see you there!


You can learn more by calling the UW Extension office for Iowa County, 608 930 9850. A really great resource!

Heart of the Farm program, UW Extension.

Iowa County Area Economic Development. Come Grow With Us

Photo courtesy of UW Extension

The new year and your new career as a startup

The passing into a new year feels to me like someone opening a curtain. It's a little too bright, and the details out there are fuzzy and indistinct in the glow. But hope and chance are out there, and it feels like a good bet to reach out and grab some of it.

I believe doing your own startups can be a smart alternative to doing nothing. I think it’s wise to be working on ways to increase your personal and financial independence. Building your own small business enterprise can be a good way to do this.

In almost all cases it will take longer than you think. It will likely deliver less clear profit than you want. You will work harder than you supposed. And as you do it, you get faster, smarter, profitable, and more independent. The real message is to get started.

The Wisconsin Innovation Kitchen offers people interested in food entrepreneurship a complete package for testing out their own small food enterprise. This is a model we hope to develop and reproduce in the coming year.

There are growing markets for regional and specialty foods, but without a growing, robust field of food entrepreneurs and artisan food startups, the market will never reach its potential.

The world of local foods needs startups. It needs innovators and creative business models.

The business and economic development opportunities available through local and regional foods are significant. New innovative, specialty food startups are integral to that discussion.

Helping them become sustainable is a worthy goal for all of us in 2011.

The Wisconsin Innovation Kitchen provides a valuable platform for testing food innovations and the wonderful entrepreneurs who create them. I look forward to sharing this story.

Happy New Year!


The Wisconsin Innovation Kitchen

Photo from a visit to the Eliza Furnace, in Vitondale, Pennsylvania. Download a history of Eliza Furnace prepared by the Indiana County PA Parks Department. A business startup story worth knowing.

Grants for farm entrepreneurs starting food businesses through the Innovation Kitchen

Good news from our Wisconsin Department of Agriculture, Trade and Consumer Protection (DATCP) this week.

We were able to enroll the Wisconsin Innovation Kitchen onto a list of approved consultants who are eligible to be paid for training and supporting Wisconsin farm entrepreneurs.

Eligible Applicants:
"Wisconsin food producers who are selling to the local food market sector are eligible to apply. Preference will be given to applicants selling at least 75 percent of their products to be consumed within 300 miles of the farm. Value-added products must include at least 50 percent Wisconsin-grown ingredients, of which at least 50 percent must be grown by the applicant."

Consulting services available from the Innovation Kitchen through this grant:
• Commercial recipe development, testing, and production services. Packaging and labeling services.
• Small food business counseling, startup and development services

If you grow food in Wisconsin you are eligible for an amazing opportunity to experiment in value added processing. You can create small, inexpensive batches of artisan recipes to sell under your own brand and label through the Wisconsin Innovation Kitchen.

This grant program, Producers First, is open to applications through the end of 2010. I'm not sure about the future of this specific program but hopefully this and others like it can continue to help our Wisconsin food entrepreneurs create jobs, grow businesses, and build a more sustainable farm and food economy.

The Producers First grant is a nice opportunity to get your new or emerging farm and food enterprise acquainted with the Wisconsin Innovation Kitchen and vice versa.

The grant will pay up to $3,000 per successful applicant, which largely covers recipe development and testing, as well as mentoring in artisan food business planning and execution.

The Hodan Center is sharing this amazing resource with Wisconsin and the world.

The Wisconsin Innovation Kitchen is a platform of knowledge, networks and valuable tools. What seems possible with this kind of platform is that these new and emerging food enterprises will become platforms themselves for creating jobs and economies that will be valuable and sustainable.

Julie Miller's article in Agri-View last week caught a quote about leveraging the physical platform this kitchen represents into many new business and community platforms for new and emerging food entrepreneurs:

“I want to start these new smaller businesses as sustainable work platforms,” says Terrien, referring to food entrepreneurs that begin at the Innovation Kitchen. “They feed families, communities, and a larger purpose. It’s these production platforms that are needed and no more so than in food.”


Download information for applicants. PDF format.

Agri-View article: Innovation Kitchen stirs economy with local produce & ready workers

The Wisconsin Innovation Kitchen

The Hodan Center

Iowa County WI economic development

"Innovation Kitchen stirs economy with local produce & ready workers"

One of our premier regional publications celebrating agriculture and rural life is Agri-View, "The Number one Ag Newspaper in Wisconsin"

Julie Martin with Agri-View did a great interview and story in their current issue, dated Dec. 9, 2010. What a great opening to the story...

"At the Innovation Kitchen in Mineral Point, their cookbook is filled with signature recipes of family-crafted specialties.

Among them is their own recipe for success, calling for a heaping tablespoon of leadership, a few cups of community support, and a dash of entrepreneurial spirit.

And don’t forget the key ingredient: a few truck loads of Wisconsin grown produce."

This is a well written story that accurately highlights many of the opportunities available through the Wisconsin Innovation Kitchen.

I thought the article did a great job summarizing what's possible: "The Innovation Kitchen helps bridge the gap between locally-produced foods and the grocery store shelf, while also creating Wisconsin jobs. A hub for new entrepreneurs to grow their ideas, this commercial kitchen has a promising outlook."

I especially love the closing quote from Annette Pierce, our Food Service Director (and Master of the Universe):

“They keep telling me that we need to expand already,” says Pierce, with a smile to the center’s success. “We want to be sustainable and to keep our local farmers in business. We’re accomplishing that, and I think this is going to help everybody.”

Amen!


Agri-View article: "Innovation Kitchen stirs economy with local produce & ready workers"

Photo credit: Julie Martin and Agri-View.

Next phone conference 12/15 - starting an artisan food enterprise through the Wisconsin Innovation Kitchen

We'll be having a phone seminar next week for people interested in starting or growing an artisan food business through the Wisconsin Innovation Kitchen. We limit these invitations to keep the conversation effective. There are 5 slots open for next Wednesday Dec. 15 at 2:30 PM CST.

Here are a couple of comments from the first seminar:

"Thank you for the very informative conference call yesterday. I came away from the call with the inspiration I needed to go to the next level. "

"It was really informative taking part in the phone seminar."

If you know someone who might be interested in having the Wisconsin Innovation Kitchen be the 'food processing back office', please pass this note along.

The Wisconsin Innovation Kitchen is an opportunity to start or grow an artisan food enterprise in a state-inspected commercial kitchen, licensed to legally and lovingly prepare recipes for commercial sale. The Innovation Kitchen can also supply packaging, labeling and shipping support, all of this at a small enough scale that's affordable for most new and emerging food entrepreneurs.

You can live anywhere in the United States and start an artisan food business through the Wisconsin Innovation Kitchen.

For people thinking about this opportunity we have a couple of pricing paths into the process. One path will focus on commercial recipe testing and development. The other path will provide mentorship in business startup and development with a focus on artisan food enterprises, as well as the commercial recipe development services.

Our next phone seminar to discuss this food entrepreneurship opportunity is next Wednesday Dec. 15 at 2:30 PM CST. We have 5 slots open for this seminar.

We also have phone seminars scheduled for Wed. Jan 5, and Wed. Jan. 19

Join us or pass this note along to a friend who may want to become a food entrepreneur ! You can register using the link below.

Request an invitation to an upcoming phone seminar for people interested in having the Wisconsin Innovation Kitchen prepare their recipes for commercial sale.

Wisconsin Innovation Kitchen

Iowa County (WI) Area Economic Development Corporation.

Boomer startups and encore careers

Long time Madison and Wisconsin contributor Nino Amato is currently the President and Executive Director of the Coalition of Wisconsin Aging Groups.

There was a very good interview with Mr. Amato in the November 2010 Madison Magazine.

The discussion of an aging workforce can be looked at from many ways. Certainly there is a financial risk to individuals and to the system.

However, starting new careers and new businesses may be one way older Americans can meet this challenge.

As Mr. Amato closes out his interview, he cites a movement I'm seeing in many areas of my economic development work, especially in the field of artisan food entrepreneurship through the Wisconsin Innovation Kitchen.

“'Baby boomers don’t think they’ll be ‘old’ until they’re eighty,' Amato says. Citing survey research conducted by Merrill Lynch, Amato says 76 percent of baby boomers intend to continue earning income full- or part-time after they retire from their main line of work. Many plan to begin new professional careers or start their own businesses."

For anyone thinking about starting their own small food enterprise to help carry them into and through their older years, the Wisconsin Innovation Kitchen may be a great option right in our own back yard.

Sounds like a plan...


Interview with Nino Amato in Madison Magazine.

Coalition of Wisconsin Aging Groups. Focusing on issues that impact older adults and people with disabilities.

The Wisconsin Innovation Kitchen. Mineral Point, Iowa County, Wisconsin.

Early Stage Symposium follow up

The Wisconsin Technology Council's Early Stage Symposium was a big success. This is our area's premier event for investors and growth businesses.

There were a record number of attendees and many great seminars. This was the first time to my knowledge that this organization has included food in its program of topics. I believe the addition of the food track helped boost attendance numbers. All of the food seminars were packed.

My friend, and fellow participant our Iowa County economic development work, John Biondi made the best presentation about one of the coolest companies I've ever seen, Xolve. John is CEO of Xolve. Xolve is in the national CleanTech finals this week in San Francisco. This is a major accomplishment. Please check out their link below. Best wishes to everyone at Xolve from all of us in your community, your state, and your region!

Governor-elect Scott Walker gave one of the keynotes, and I was energized by his goal of starting 10,000 new businesses during his first term. We're building a model to crank out new enterprises and grow our existing Wisconsin food businesses. I'm watching it work: The team behind the Wisconsin Innovation Kitchen has helped individuals start new businesses, helped existing Wisconsin businesses to grow and has processed well over 25,000 pounds of local foods from our wonderful Wisconsin family farms.

This all happened in their first 3 months of kitchen operations.

When the Highland food processing center comes on line our region will be able to kick it up another notch. There are many new businesses that can be created in both rural and urban communities using these models.

I sincerely believe these kinds of value added food platforms can help our state get to Governor-elect Walker's goal of 10,000 new businesses in 4 years.

Good luck this week John and everyone at Xolve at the CleanTech Open finals this coming week. Break a nano particle!



The CleanTech Open Awards ceremony. Wed. Nov. 17. Congratulations to everyone at Xolve for this amazing achievement!

Wisconsin Technology Council's overview of the symposium and Governor-elect Walker's opportunities. Great to hear the food cluster discussed so prominently. The Bill Joos interview at the end is great.

The Wisconsin Innovation Kitchen, which is owned and operated by the Hodan Center, in beautiful Iowa County, Wisconsin.

I was fortunate to share a panel with my friend Michael Gay from the City of Madison's economic development team, who also farms in beautiful Iowa County, Wisconsin. This is a great online interview Michael shared with In Business Magazine's Coffee with Michael Gay.

Specialty food is a $63 billion per year opportunity

There is a great article about the opportunity available in specialty foods in Inc. Magazine. "How to Bring a Food Product to Market", by Gina Pace, dated Oct 28, 2010

"According to the National Association for the Specialty Food Trade, in 2010 specialty food will account for $50.3 billion in sales through stores, and another $12.7 billion through restaurants - accounting 13.1 percent of all food sales."

I think the artisan food career program we've created at the Innovation Kitchen is an amazing way for people to experiment in food entrepreneurship. You have a recipe. We make it for you, package it, label it, store it and ship it. You get to start an artisan food enterprise in a growing $63 billion per year space. The size of the market this study identifies is significant. This is a great time to experiment, to launch an encore career, to launch a great new food innovation, to make some jobs.

As a plug for Iowa County, Mineral Point and the Wisconsin Innovation Kitchen, if you utilize the Innovation Kitchen as your co-packer (we make it / package it for you), visiting Mineral Point becomes a business trip. See a great article about Mineral Point in the Chicago Tribune below.

The Wisconsin Innovation Kitchen is proving to be a valuable experiment in expanding the opportunities in local foods and regional food systems.

Having the Specialty Foods trade association measure the business at $63 billion per year is a real eye opener.


How to Bring a Food Product to Market. Inc. Magazine. October 28, 2010. Written by Gina Pace.

Chicago Tribune article about Mineral Point. By William Hageman. November 7, 2010.

Photo is of Jeremy Lynch, of Enos Farms. At the Wisconsin Innovation Kitchen we refer to Jeremy as our 'Farmer in Residence'. His culinary skills and his food lines are amazing! Our family LOVES Jeremy's Parsnip Black Pepper Crackers. Jeremy farms near Frank Lloyd Wright's Taliesen in wonderful Wyoming Township, Iowa County, Wisconsin.

Wisconsin Innovation Kitchen

Opportunities in food entrepreneurship

I thought we had a very good workshop at the Innovation Kitchen last week. We welcomed our regional Southwestern Wisconsin Small Business Development Center’s to our workshop on food entrepreneurship.

Wonderful questions. My measure of a good meeting is when the people who came for one thing end up interacting with one another across all sorts of new ideas after the main session is over. We had plenty of that! The entire evening was a great discussion I thought. Thanks!

The general topic was food safety certifications and business planning for food entrepreneurs. The specific topic was utilizing the Innovation Kitchen to execute those plans. I believe the SW WI SBDC will sponsor this seminar again next March.

People get PhDs in small but critical areas of food processing. My 90 minute seminar is certainly not intended to be anything other than a brief introduction to the topic and important homework you’ll need, but I thought it was a good start.

Workshop topics included:

- State and health regulations/ certifications, how to source
ingredients and other resources

- Scaling recipes

- Introduction to commercial food business and marketing
plans

- Requirements and opportunities for utilizing the Innovation Kitchen


This workshop was presented by:
SWSBDC
SCORE
Iowa County Area Economic Development Corp.
The Wisconsin Innovation Kitchen.

This workshop was presented in partnership with:

Blackhawk Technical College
SCORE
Southwest Wisconsin Community Action Agency
Southwest Wisconsin Small Business Development Center
Southwest Tech
Wisconsin Women’s Business Initiative Corporation


The following are taken from the feedback form Gary from the SBDC sent back I’m including these because I had the same feelings for the folks attending. This idea of food entrepreneurship is an amazing story to share and I really enjoy doing it.

Feedback collected by the SBDC for our Workshop ‘Food Processing Business Workshop’:

• Rick was very thorough about starting a food business
• Excellent Presentation – personal examples are best!
• Presenter’s enthusiasm
• Clearly understood presentation of the issues
• Very Informational meeting on everything, the “ins & outs” of business start-up
• The range of topics (covered)
• Good presentation, very helpful
• Great over view of process & regulations (state & Feds) and of facility… I was inspired by Rick’s presentation"


This was a really fun presentation to be a part of. It was the first detailed business analysis I’ve been able to write based on the Innovation Kitchen’s first full quarter of food preparation operations. What an opportunity this is.

Thanks to everyone who attended last evening!

Selling the artisan food career package

Very interesting opening night at the Madison Food and Wine Show. Through our past businesses I'm used to industrial and commercial trade shows. I thought those were busy and exciting. This is a consumer show with a lot more traffic. I'm told the Saturday and Sunday shows are much busier.

My daughters are running our booth masterfully. It was a sheer joy to work with them. I also had the pleasure of being able to introduce them to good friends in my food and economic development work.

I am actively selling our Wisconsin Innovation Kitchen's artisan food career package for the first time. This will work. We'll do this for 100 people (partners) at this price then reassess. I'm very encouraged.

If you are near Madison this weekend, this is a great show. Come visit!


2010 Madison Food and Wine Show

Thank you to Madison Magazine for the photo

Artisan food career web site and public launch

With the help of many people, we are offering our one-time, fixed-price package of training and mentorship in artisan food entrepreneurship through the Wisconsin Innovation Kitchen.

For those just joining the story, the Wisconsin Innovation Kitchen is a new, 10,000 square foot food preparation facility in beautiful Iowa County, WI. The Innovation Kitchen is a shared use facility, which means the staff can prepare foods for food entrepreneurs for sale nationwide. With our great agricultural setting we have access to a wide range of wonderful, sustainably raised foods. The kitchen is also available on a rental basis for regional food entrepreneurs who want to process their own recipes.

Web site for artisan food career program. This is in roughest draft but it is wired in. Off we go...

The Artisan Food Career program.

3D Debut. Madison Food and Wine Show. We’ll be debuting the artisan food career package at the Madison (WI) Food and Wine Show October 22, 23, and 24. To lure the unsuspecting we will be sampling the amazing line of Farmhouse Recipes’ jalapeno jams over cream cheese and crackers (of course available for private label Christmas gifts with your family/business name and message…).

At this great venue, we’ll be available to introduce the artisan food career idea and answer questions about launching one through the Innovation Kitchen.


WI Public Radio Oct 27. The Larry Meiller show produced by Jim Packard: 11:45 AM – 12:30 PM. Just got an invitation to be a guest on Larry’s show on Wed., Oct. 27. Can’t wait to introduce our Wisconsin Innovation Kitchen and this artisan food career opportunity in Iowa County to a wider multi-state audience. Larry’s show makes a great contribution to Wisconsin and far beyond.

This should be a great month for talking about local foods and regional food systems as economic development tools for individuals and communities.

I so hope we can represent this opportunity accurately with all the possibilities and responsibilities understood by all involved. It will be an iterative process with all these checklists getting better as time goes on.

If you know anyone with an interest in an artisan food career, please send them our link:

Our Artisan Food Career program.

Thanks and eat well!


The Madison Food and Wine show. Oct. 22-24, 2010. Friday 5-9 PM. Saturday 12-7 PM. Sunday 12-4 PM.

We're joining the show thanks to the good efforts of Something Special from Wisconsin. Thanks SSfW !

Janet the pioneer! Our first ‘artisan food career’ entrepreneur!

Our first artisan foods entrepreneur has set sail.

Janet will become the first person to utilize our ‘Artisan Food Career’ package to launch a new food business through the Wisconsin Innovation Kitchen.

Janet retired after a long, successful career as a teacher. Now Janet is launching her encore career.

I could not be more impressed with Janet’s enthusiasm. More importantly, Janet is (patiently!) helping us test our intake systems for new entrepreneurs at the Innovation Kitchen. Thank you, Janet!

And we’re still friends.

The Innovation Kitchen, and our “Artisan Foods Career’ package is emerging as a really unique and valuable opportunity for food entrepreneurs. This wonderful place can be your legal commercial kitchen for running a food business from wherever you live that can ship world wide.

And the Innovation Kitchen is nestled in spectacular Iowa County Wisconsin. The kitchen is located in historic, artistic Mineral Point. Surrounded by amazing farms and big demand from regional cities. Iowa County is in the Madison region of beautiful southern Wisconsin. When you visit your processing plant it’s a business trip. Top that.

The Innovation Kitchen is a food entrepreneur’s dream. Well, perhaps it will be a little more dream-like after Janet graciously helps us test the system.

So, Janet has become our first artisan foods career entrepreneur.

Thank you, Janet the pioneer!



This is all being made possible by the Hodan Center. The person making all the food goodness happen is Annette Pierce, Food Service Director for the Hodan Center and Master of the Universe.

Photo is looking through the amazing plant kaleidoscope ("observer of beautiful forms.") at our wonderful Olbrich Gardens in Madison, WI

Sept 25, 2010. Update 3. Chef Joel Olson's first cooking course was delicious!

Chef Joel presented his first cooking course, Everyday Cooking: Cooking Without a Recipe With Wisconsin Local Foods this month. It was really a cool experience. I was thrilled and I know from people that were there for the full session that they learned a great deal. They also ate very well!

Chef Joel’s next course will be on Saturday Oct. 9th.

This is a quick description of Chef Joel’s presentation:

Learn the techniques and methods necessary to set the foundation for cooking without a recipe. Learn which ingredients to have on hand and how to get away from feeling you are eating leftovers.

The morning portion of the class will cover a large repertoire of recipes, cooking techniques and tips with a meal prepared for you. After a short break, participants will work in groups to prepare gourmet dishes from an array of Wisconsin local ingredients for appetizers, entrees and desserts.

Chef Joel's next course will be Saturday Oct. 9th from 9:30 to 4:30 PM. Join us!



Download the brochure for Chef Joel Olson’s course. Second Saturday of most months.

Wisconsin Innovation kitchen.

Sept. 25, 2010. Update 2. Local entrepreneur grows their business working in the Innovation Kitchen.

We’ve worked to make the Innovation Kitchen a platform for helping existing small food enterprises grow and create jobs.

It’s fun to see this emerging. Two of our four newly licensed Processing Partners are existing small family-based food businesses in Iowa County. The other two are also emerging small food businesses from neighboring counties.

The Innovation Kitchen is making it possible for these local foods entrepreneurs to step it up a notch without the financial risk of building their own facilities and all that entails.

Another great example emerged this week as my friend Julia from Atomic Ice in Mineral Point was able to take on a nice commercial catering contract because of the availability of the Innovation Kitchen as a work-space for she and her team.

We were both running in opposite directions when they were done, but Julia gave the experience rave reviews.

Thanks Julia - the food looked delicious!

Here is another great example of the Wisconsin Innovation Kitchen helping our existing small businesses innovate and grow jobs.

The great staff at the Innovation Kitchen can also make and ship innovative food products for food entrepreneurs and small food businesses based anywhere in the world.

The Innovation Kitchen is a great economic development story for our entire region. As more of our businesses discover the opportunities available through this amazing platform the better and better this story will get.

Yum!

Would you like to help grow small food businesses? Spread the word!

Please send the Wisconsin Innovation Kitchen link below to friends connected to the food business who may be looking for a way to innovate and expand their enterprise. Have we got a kitchen for them…

Tell a food friend. Thanks for your help!


Wisconsin Innovation Kitchen

Food entrepreneurship - Progress at the Innovation Kitchen

The Wisconsin Innovation Kitchen congratulates our first group of newly-state-licensed food processors!

Our state inspector was in Friday morning to go over the applications of our first food Processing Partners. These are folks who will be processing their own recipes in the Innovation Kitchen.

All passed with flying colors. All 4 are launched and underway.

These good folks represent a wave of new opportunities emerging in food entrepreneurship. They are also representative of the regional impact and opportunities the Innovation Kitchen can help create. Two of the four are existing Iowa County (WI) businesses. One is from Dane County (Madison), and one is from Grant County (Platteville)

One of our Processing Partners, my friend Matt, has already had his foods accepted at a major food store in Madison.

Another of these friends, Mike, set the gold standard for making the most of a community shared kitchen during his test run.

We were able to offer another of these new Processing Partners – Cindy, a wonderful baker - an opportunity to do the baking for a new, recurring order she could legitimately build a nice business around.

From the beginning, we’ve talked of this facility becoming both a processing and marketing kitchen. It’s happening. We are not only attracting innovative food enterprises as you’d expect, but also buyers who are asking us to supply local and regional foods to enhance and grow their businesses.

So, congratulations to our four new Processing Partners – those making their own recipes in the Kitchen!

We also have several excellent Preparation Partners emerging – those that have the Innovation Kitchen prepare their recipes.

This group is the model for the ‘artisan food career’ concept I’ve been proposing.

These Preparation Partners are building business plans around becoming ‘virtual food enterprises’. They will operate the money and management sides of their businesses from where ever they live. All professional food preparation, processing, and distribution can be managed at the Innovation Kitchen.

This alleviates the need for the virtual food entrepreneurs to build their own state-inspected facilities, take all the certification courses, as well as hire and train food processing staff.

The Wisconsin Innovation Kitchen is moving forward on all fronts. This is an exciting and fortunate time to be a food entrepreneur.

We can help, train and launch your food enterprise no matter where you live. Join us!

The Wisconsin Innovation Kitchen. Opens in a new window.

An outline of an ‘artisan food career’ package.

We're designing our 'artisan food career' package this year as a test. We are looking for a maximum of 100 partners that can help us refine this program as early-adopters, with all that entails.

That said, the Innovation Kitchen can become a valuable platform for growing and launching innovative food enterprises.

The overview:

All of us know someone who has a wonderful signature recipe that everyone thinks should be taken to market. This ‘artisan food career’ package lets people test that idea utilizing a licensed, insured, commercial food processing plant to prepare and help market their recipes for commercial sale.

The Innovation Kitchen lets people take their best recipes to the next level.

The Innovation Kitchen can help people start and grow their own artisan food enterprises. They can do this from wherever they live and utilize the Innovation Kitchen as their processing facility and support partner.

The offer consists of 12 training and consulting sessions, leading to the launch their own commercial food product line using the Innovation Kitchen as their preparation source.

The training and consulting sessions also lead to a certification in artisan foods management.

The training and consulting sessions are ongoing and can be largely self-paced. We anticipate it may be typical for individual entrepreneurs to complete the twelve training and consulting modules and launch their food enterprises within six to eighteen months.

The Innovation Kitchen is a state-inspected, licensed, fully insured commercial food processing plant. Foods prepared here can be shipped for commercial sale nationwide.

Food possibilities:
People can utilize the Innovation Kitchen to create artisan food careers based around everything from treasured family recipes to their exciting new food innovations that fall within our processing capacity.


Why this is important:
The Innovation Kitchen can fully manage the preparation, packaging, labeling, storage and shipping requirements for the food entrepreneur.

What need does this fill:
This package allows people to develop and test their recipes at commercial scale in a professional, licensed, and insured commercial kitchen. Once the recipe plan is fully developed, the Innovation Kitchen can act as their preparation partner for processing their recipes in a safe, insured environment, with a full compliment of business, sales and distribution services available.

Artisan food entrepreneurs can utilize the Innovation Kitchen to start and grow innovative new food enterprises from wherever they live.

How can I run a food enterprise from where I live using the Innovation Kitchen?

The Innovation Kitchen can act as the ‘virtual processing facility’ for artisan food companies operating from anywhere in the U.S.

A food entrepreneur from Seattle or Vermont or Tucson or Texas could run an artisan food business from their homes with all the preparation and ‘back office’ documentation and logistics supplied by the Innovation Kitchen.

The innovation Kitchen can provide these services to an artisan food entrepreneur:
- purchase and store ingredients to your specifications
- prepare
- package
- label
- store product
- sell at our retail store
- sell on Innovation Kitchen web site
- fulfill (ship) orders taken on your website
- ship nationwide


So, with that in mind, what’s the Artisan Food Career package look like?

For those who receive this package as a gift, or those investing in themselves, people can expect training and support in two key areas:

- business planning support for starting and growing an artisan food career.
(six modules)

- food processing support for preparing and packaging your recipes.
(six modules)

These lead to a certification in artisan foods management. Each entrepreneur can decide in which order they want to utilize each training component.

We recommend you complete the business planning components while you develop your recipe plan. The business planning modules are designed to guide people into homework at their local level that needs to be addressed if you will be opening a new business, or growing an existing one.

Business training is done live online and on the phone. We have small group sessions where people gather on the phone and online for a subject-specific presentation as well as plenty of time for Q&A.

The six business planning modules include the following topics:

• Introduction to small food enterprises

• Planning your enterprises

• Organizing your enterprise

• Managing your enterprise

• Marketing your enterprise

• Capturing enterprise data


The six artisan food processing modules include these consultation and training steps: (These modules can be done through whatever combination of phone, internet and kitchen visits is most convenient for the entrepreneur.)

• Recipe development and consultation

• Purchasing information and support
(ingredient sourcing, plus packaging, labeling support)

• Recipe testing

• Required documentation

• Approved recipe plan

• Graduation and commercial recipe launch!

Graduation and commercial recipe launch will be a celebration! The Innovation kitchen will make the first artisan commercial batches of your recipe according to your recipe plan. For our food entrepreneurs that can visit, we will present them with their Graduation Certificates in Artisan Foods Management and their personalized chef coat. During the inaugural processing batch, we will be able to take many photos for the entrepreneur's web page at the Innovation Kitchen web site and their own web sites. Photos can include the entrepreneur helping process their first commercial batch, applying the first commercial labels, etc.

Completion of all modules qualifies the entrepreneur for a Certificate of Artisan Foods Management from the Innovation Kitchen.

The artisan food career package is a work in progress. If you know of anyone that might enjoy being an early adopter in this great adventure, this may be the best gift you could ever give them. Or don't wait for the gift to come your way. Invest in yourself. Either way we'll limit the first round to 100 food entrepreneurs and innovators.

If you know of someone who would benefit by having this gift presented to them please let me know. Also if you want to invest in yourself get in contact. This will be a great story and a great platform for launching new food enterprises.

Do you know someone with a signature recipe everyone says they should market? Perhaps your own recipe. Help launch an artisan food career for yourself or a loved one.

This year, give the gift of an artisan food career. Give it to a loved one. Give it to yourself.


Link to the Innovation Kitchen's Artisan Food Career page.

Give the gift of an artisan food career

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