Welcome to our new small poultry and meat plant in Iowa County, Wisconsin! Also... New USDA program for small poultry and meat plants announced.

What great news!

I can now start talking about the fact that we have a wonderful new small poultry and meat plant opening in Highland, in Iowa County Wisconsin.

We've been working on this in the background almost since I started doing economic development work in Iowa County.

This beautiful new plant is being designed to have a focus on poultry but also have the capacity to process rabbits and emu as well.

This is a big deal for many reasons.

Among them, the U.S. Department of Agriculture just created a great new pilot program for small, state-inspected poultry and meat processors to allow shipping their foods across state lines.

Agriculture Deputy Secretary Merrigan Announces New Opportunities for Small Meat and Poultry Processors (emphasis added)

"WASHINGTON, August 9, 2012 – Agriculture Deputy Secretary Kathleen Merrigan announced today that Ohio will be the first state to participate in USDA's Cooperative Interstate Shipment Program. Under this program, Ohio's small, state-inspected meat processors will be able to ship their products across state lines.

The cooperative interstate shipment program will expand economic opportunities for America's small meat and poultry processors, strengthen state and local economies, and increase consumer access to safe, locally-produced food."

###

This is great news for local foods and regional food systems everywhere.

Our new Iowa County USDA poultry and meat processing facility will begin opening this fall in Highland, Wisconsin.

The plan is to open with a commercial kitchen and meat counter for private label processing and local retail sales.

After that they will offer custom processing services for our region. Processing services will be available for chickens, turkeys, rabbits and emu at this beautiful new facility.

I can't wait to help tie this cool new Iowa County poultry and meat news to our amazing story at the Wisconsin Innovation Kitchen.

Perhaps the most important part to me personally is that I will now get to eat more home-made pie and delicious comfort food at Grandma's Restaurant in Highland, Wisconsin. The rest pales in comparison.

There is so much good news emerging for smaller scale, safe, professional food processing services of all kinds.

The new USDA program supporting small poultry and meat processors is great news for food economic development.

Now is the time to build a collaborative network of these facilities.

Iowa County, Wisconsin is an innovative and integral part of this national conversation.



Agriculture Deputy Secretary Merrigan Announces New Opportunities for Small Meat and Poultry Processors

Iowa County Area Economic Development

Wisconsin Innovation Kitchen

Thank You Sysco Baraboo

We had a wonderful day meeting Sysco customers and sales folks at the Sysco Baraboo local foods expo in Middleton yesterday.

Thanks to Sysco and all the great new friends we made at the event.

The Wisconsin Innovation Kitchen provides small-batch, professional food processing services. Food businesses of all sizes can benefit from this by having their own recipes made in our $1.5 million, 10,000 square food commercial kitchen. This is a great way to grow local food businesses.

We really enjoyed the Sysco local foods expo. Thanks very much for the invitation. We look forward to serving the Sysco team and the food professionals they support in our region!


Sysco Food Services of Baraboo

Wisconsin Innovation Kitchen

Next presentation - Thank you Illinois Farm Bureau

I'm really looking forward to my next presentation.

I've been invited by the Illinois Farm Bureau to talk about the Innovation Kitchens model and regional food systems at their upcoming Local Food Connections and Technical Summit later this month.

This one is invitation-only. Attendees will include state and federal agencies, colleges and universities, nonprofits, councils, taskforces, farmer producer groups, government liaisons, economic development officers, and others.

I plan to talk about food safety, our wonderfully diverse workforce at the Wisconsin Innovation Kitchen, optimizing facilities and equipment, food business challenges, and how local farmers can utilize our Innovation Kitchens business model to create jobs and new economic development opportunities for farm families.

My focus will be on how to create and integrate this kind of community based food processing capacity across multiple states.

This can improve the economic well-being of Illinois agriculture and enrich the quality of farm family life in Illinois and the region.

I'm honored to join this group of presenters:

Director Bob Flider, Director of Illinois Department of Agriculture

Director David Vaught, Illinois Department of Commerce and Economic Opportunity

Director Colleen Callahan, USDA Rural Development

Cynthia Haskins, Manager of Business Development and Compliance, Illinois Farm Bureau

Tiffany Carrington, Senior Program Specialist, USDA, Food and Nutrition Services

Carol Pinkerton, Buyer, Bureau of Strategic Sourcing, Illinois Central Management Services

Pat Stieren, Executive Director, Illinois Farmers’ Market Association

William Weissinger, Deputy Director, United States Food and Drug Administration

Industry Experts discussing post harvesting, distribution and marketing

Rick Terrien, Executive Director, Iowa County Area Economic Development Corporation

Richard Weinzierl, Professor and Extension Entomologist, University of Illinois Extension

Deborah Cavanaugh-Grant, Extension Educator, Local Food System and Small Farms, University of Illinois Extension


What seems important to me about this opportunity is that our last business was an Illinois / Wisconsin collaboration. Our business model not only flourished, we won the United States Small Business New Product of the Year Award for 2005, presented by the National Society of Professional Engineers.

The Illinois Farm Bureau presentation is in Bloomington, IL. We ran globally relevant green manufacturing and data management operations just 60 miles away in Streator, IL. At the same time we ran business development from Wisconsin. Together our enterprise served wonderful customers on 6 continents.

The Innovation Kitchens model is another great opportunity to do an effective, important Illinois / Wisconsin collaboration.

Thank you for the invitation, Illinois Farm Bureau. What a great opportunity to discuss new economic development opportunities for agriculture and our farm families.


Illinois Farm Bureau.

Wisconsin Innovation Kitchen

Iowa County Area Economic Development

Young Chinese scholars visit Iowa County

On Thursday of this past week we greatly enjoyed a visit by a group of young scholars from mainland China to the Wisconsin Innovation Kitchen (WINK). The group's visit was coordinated and made possible by The Environment & Public Health Network for Chinese Students and Scholars (ENCSS).

I got to introduce Annette Pierce, our WINK Food Service Director and explain her critical role in food safety and how that makes our operations important.

They gave her a generous round of applause.

I also tried to explain to them about Annette's role as Mistress of the Universe, and that got another round of applause.

We made 35 fun new friends from China on Thursday!

Thank You NCESS for arranging this visit.

While there, the visiting students got to do some actual food processing.

Annette and her team had the group slice tomatoes and prepare them to be dehydrated and packaged. It was great fun to be with the group while they worked and talked among themselves. Mandarin is such a beautiful language. Too bad I am limited to 'hello' and 'thank you' for now - but I will learn more soon!

Annette and team made a great traditional American lunch for the group, with a special fancy chocolate based treat for dessert.

After lunch we shared gifts with the students. The WINK team had prepared packages of dehydrated tomatoes with ENCSS on the label along with a welcome from the Wisconsin Innovation Kitchen. Annette truly is the Mistress of the Universe.

Thank you Annette and team!!

What a fun visit... Ni Hao!


The Environment & Public Health Network for Chinese Students and Scholars (ENCSS)

Wisconsin Innovation Kitchen

Hodan Center, The center supporting people with disabilities that owns and created the Wisconsin Innovation Kitchen.

Previous post (March 23, 2012) post about ENCSS and this group visit.

Iowa County Area Economic Development

Lunch for the ENCSS students was sponsored by Alliant Energy. Thank you Alliant Energy!

Great meeting of the Wisconsin Local Food Network at the Wisconsin Innovation Kitchen

We had a great gathering of the Wisconsin Local Food Network (WLFN) at the Wisconsin Innovation Kitchen yesterday.

It was an honor to introduce the great work Annette and her team are accomplishing at the Wisconsin Innovation Kitchen, and the support work our economic development organization, the Iowa County Area Economic Development Corp. (ICAEDC) provides for their work. This is an excellent partnership!

Our ICAEDC Board Chair Dr. Lorin Toepper of Madison College is in the photo discussing economic development implications of the kitchen's work.

What was also great fun is that we got to show off our new mobile poultry processing equipment for the first time. We now own a trailer and all the poultry processing equipment needed for area farms to rent the unit and do on-farm processing and sales of their chickens.

The entire poultry package was utilized last weekend on its inaugural processing run, and was a resounding success!

Thanks to the WLFN for a great visit to the Wisconsin Innovation Kitchen!


Wisconsin Innovation Kitchen

Wisconsin Local Food Network

Iowa County Area Economic Development

A great week ahead for the Wisconsin Innovation Kitchen

The Wisconsin Innovation Kitchen is hosting a couple of great gatherings this coming week.

The first is a meeting of the Wisconsin Local Food Network.

Can't wait to reconnect with old friends and make new ones.

A couple days later we are looking forward to hosting new friends and young scholars from China, on a group visit through The Environment & Public Health Network for Chinese Students and Scholars (ENCSS)

These visits represent important recognition for Annette and her amazing team at the Wisconsin Innovation Kitchen, as well as Tom and the entire Hodan Center.

WI Local Food Network

ENCSS

Wisconsin Innovation Kitchen

Hodan Center

Photo is from the Grand Opening of the Wisconsin Innovation Kitchen July 2010. Food Service Director, and Mistress of the Universe, Annette Pierce is at the center of this photo, and this galaxy.

Kickstarter campaign - replicating Innovation Kitchens

Do you know Kickstarter? It's a great model for crowd funding cool projects and innovations.

The idea is that innovators can propose a project on Kickstarter with a promise of rewards, in return for advance pledges of support.

This model has a ton of free market merit. I'm going to submit a Kickstarter project later this week. We're going to use it to do market development for the next Innovation Kitchen. We have a great new partnership emerging to do the first replication in inner city Milwaukee.

Kickstarter has broken the mold when it comes to financing innovation and creative economic development. What they have started will resonate for decades.

I've greatly enjoyed learning about Kickstarter and pledging financial support to five projects so far.

We are very much looking forward to launching our first Kickstarter campaign this week. Please consider helping spread the word when this launches publicly.

Entrepreneurship is being supported by so much good stuff it takes my breath away. Kickstarter is a great model I'm proud to support.


Kickstarter

Wisconsin Innovation Kitchen

Harvard Business Review - The Most Important Predictor of Sales Success

As an old hand at business startups, I believe the most ignored piece of that story is sales.

However, nothing is more critical to the success of ANY enterprise than creating - selling - new customers. Here's a good new article on the subject from Harvard Business Review:

"The Most Important Predictor of Sales Success"

"No profession in business has a more complex reputation than sales. When we think of salespeople — from Willy Loman in Death of a Salesman to Donald Trump to Steve Jobs — all kinds of contradictory ideas and images jangle in our minds. They can be persuaders and bullies, seducers and rogues, dream-makers and charlatans. But without them, no business exists."

"It's not just salespeople who must sell. Entrepreneurs must persuade others of the value of an idea or company which has yet to take concrete form. CEOs must convince the board, markets, employees, and customers that what they are doing is valuable. Politicians, artists, and scientists all must sell themselves and their work in order to succeed."

"Sales is the most human and richly nuanced aspect of business and yet, amazingly, is not even a required course at most business schools. MBA students are dutifully taught finance, strategy and operations as if revenue appeared by magic and salespeople were at best a necessary evil."

"...what enables a salesperson to succeed is that they've found a match between who they are and what they are being required to do."

I tend to love smart people that agree with me. That said...

Nothing is more important in business than having real customers and ways to make more of them. That's what sales and market development are all about.

Harvard Business Review. "The Most Important Predictor of Sales Success". Written by Philip Delves Broughton, 6/27/12. Thanks.

"Why Baby Boomers are the innovators of the future" ... or... why you should start a food business, my boomer pals

"Are Baby Boomers the face of the innovative startup of the future?"

This is a great overview posted yesterday by Dominic Basulto at the Washington Post.

There are many great reasons boomers have to launch their own enterprise. This article supports those opportunities.

Of special significance is the idea that boomers will lead in the creation of new enterprises focusing on good health.

Food enterprises should be considered as the leading edge in the business category of good health. Keeping us healthy through good food is far more valuable and less expensive than medicines, surgery and biotechnology. This opportunity will last for decades.

Food entrepreneurship through our Innovation Kitchen model is making a significant contribution to this discussion.

Opportunities for boomer innovation and entrepreneurship are everywhere. Don't slow down. Accelerate.


Washington Post - "Why Baby Boomers are the innovators of the future" by Dominic Basulto. Original quotes and graphic are copyright the Washington Post. Thank you.

This great post written by Dominic Basulto

Earlier Sustainable Work posts about boomer entrepreneurship

Accelerate. "To cause faster or greater activity, development, progress, advancement, etc., in: to accelerate economic growth." Dictionary.com

Good news for community food processing last week

We're in the midst of an opportunity to grow businesses, entrepreneurship and good jobs through food.

The Innovation Kitchen model was highlighted along with other great projects at our Milwaukee (M7) Food and Beverage Advisory Board meeting on Tuesday.

Right after the M7 FaB meeting, I got the chance to meet with a great new friend working on economic development in inner city Milwaukee. There is so much opportunity for rural and urban regions to collaborate on job creation through food entrepreneurship. This could be fun.

And (drumroll...) our Iowa County Board approved a loan package that will help open a USDA inspected poultry processing facility in our beautiful Highland, Wisconsin. They will be able to process emu too. What fun. This has been a project my economic development org has been involved with from the start.

Congratulations Midwest Poultry and Ratite! Congratulations Highland!

New presentation: I was honored by an invitation this week to speak at the Illinois Farm Bureau's Local Food Connections and Technical Summit in early August in Bloomington. My presentation will focus on strategies for developing and integrating local food processing opportunities across the region.

New friends: I also had a chance later in the week to visit the Michael Fields Institute in East Troy, WI and got to meet with David Andrews, Executive Director. The Michael Fields Institute's mission is to "cultivate the ecological, social, economic, and spiritual vitality of food and farming systems through education, research, policy and market development." Great visit. I'm looking forward to learning more.

A great week for local food processing initiatives and meeting new friends!


FaB Milwaukee. The Milwaukee 7 Food and Beverage Industry Network.

Illinois Farm Bureau

Michael Fields Institute

Highland - in beautiful Iowa County, Wisconsin.

Raw Dog Relish. The Wisconsin Innovation Kitchen prepares and processes Raw Dog Relish for my friend Mike. I really love the label Mike's designed, including the 5 Top Uses for Raw Dog Relish:
Pile on brats
Pile on burgers
Pile on hot dogs
Pile on steaks
Pile on crackers

I agree!. To order your own Raw Dog Relish call the Wisconsin Innovation Kitchen at 608 987 3558.