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.

What 3 questions would you ask a community interested in economic development?

My friend Laura Brown is the Community Development Specialist at the Center for Community & Economic Development at our University of Wisconsin Cooperative Extension.

She posed a question over on LinkedIn to the economic development professionals group that got me wondering. She asked: "If you could ask three questions to find out if a community is ready for economic development what would they be?"

I have always focused on creating customers and building an inclusive culture of entrepreneurship. Here's how I answered...

Is there a will to focus on creating new customers for your community?

Is there a will to invest the time (3-5 years) and budget to create a culture of entrepreneurship in your community?

Will you agree that whatever strategy is adopted, access to the tools and benefits of economic development should be available to the widest number of people in your community?

Without a 'yes' to all 3, you don't have many sustainable options.


Photo taken our Olbrich Gardens, late May.

Celebrating Milwaukee and Wisconsin's food and beverage future

Our Milwaukee region, and our state of Wisconsin, are globally relevant leaders in the world of safe, sustainable food processing.

We have global A-Game talent. We have the human networks and the physical infrastructure in place. We have an amazingly diverse agricultural capacity to grow, process and distribute an abundance of great foods.

Perhaps most important, we have the water resources, as well as the water science and engineering expertise in Wisconsin to make it all sustainable.

Here is a great quote from my friend Shelly Jurewicz, leader of our Milwaukee M7 Food and Beverage group:

"We truly have a wealth of companies in this industry, in this region," Jurewicz said. "Everyone from growers, makers, bakers, brewers, bottlers, educators, scientists, farmers, distributors, grocers and restaurateurs bring something to the table."

"There are currently 243 food and beverage manufacturers located in the seven-county Milwaukee region, employing 14,700 people. Seven of the world's 11 largest food manufacturers have a presence in the region, and Wisconsin has the greatest concentration of food industry workers in the nation."

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Wisconsin is a world leader in food based economic development. It's also a tremendous place to live and do business in the globally relevant world of safe, wholesome foods. Join us!


FaB Milwaukee site. Thanks Shelly and friends!

BizTimes article about M7

Help a great new food company with your vote

At the Wisconsin Innovation Kitchen I have made many wonderful new friends.

Among my favorites are Karen and John, proprietors of The Elegant Vegan, a great new food products company I patronize and support.

Karen and John just sent out a short note (below) asking for community support (votes!) to support their application to Mission Small Business. Below is Karen's note:

"Dear Friend,

We write to ask you to vote for The Elegant Vegan by June 30 us to make us eligible for a grant from Mission Small Business.

As you may know, we started a vegan food product company about two and a half years ago. We wanted a broader selection of really good foods that we wanted to eat and found that many others shared our desire for tasty, healthy foods. You can get more information about our two food lines, The Elegant Vegan and Vegan Eats ‘N Treats from our two websites: The Elegant Vegan & Vegan Eats 'N Treats. You’ll see that we established a company that has a socially responsible aspect to it as we employ a non-profit owned commercial kitchen that has a licensed kitchen staff and hires people with disabilities to carry out non-technical tasks.

We also pledge to donate 2% of our net profits to organizations that promote social justice. You’ll see what people say about our products and you’ll also see photos and descriptions of some of our products. What you won’t see is that in a short period of time we’ve captured the interest of Whole Foods Markets in Madison, Milwaukee, Evanston, and Chicago, the Outpost in Wauwatosa, Wisconsin, A Natural Harvest and KMT health food stores in Chicago, and Perelandra in Brooklyn, New York, all of which are in the process of placing orders or putting systems in place to order our products.

We are poised to grow and are applying for a grant from Mission Small Business that would provide needed resources to support this growth.

We therefore urge you to follow these steps to vote (takes about 3 minutes):

1. Go to this link at Mission Small Business.. You will see on the bottom right side of the screen the message: Log in with Facebook to support your community.

2. Click on Log in & Support, where you will need to log on with your Facebook account.

3. Enter The Elegant Vegan into the search box and it will take you to a place where you can vote for us (Maxey Lynn is our parent company and we are based in Wisconsin).

We would appreciate it if you would forward this message to members of your network and ask them to vote for us. We need to obtain 250 votes by June 30th.

We are really depending on your help as we don’t think we even know 250 people between us! If you have any questions or need more information, please do not hesitate to contact us. Thanks so much!

Karen and John"

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This is a wonderful example of great people, great food and an outstanding small business all coming together to promote social good. Please follow the Mission Small Business link below and vote for my friends Karen and John at The Elegant Vegan. Best of luck friends!


Vote for The Elegant Vegan at Mission Small Business starting here

The Elegant Vegan

Vegan Eats 'N Treats

While you're at it, check out Karen and John's lovely B&B Ye Olde Manor House in beautiful Elkhorn, WI.

Photo is of one of my favorites from The Elegant Vegan, Sweetly Pickled Radishes.

Wisconsin Innovation Kitchen