News Agribiz Michigan Made: MSU Product Center highlights locally based food companies
Michigan Made: MSU Product Center highlights locally based food companies
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By Kym Reinstadler | FoodBiz
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Cedar Springs-based Brittanie’s Thyme launched in 2007 and leveraged support from MSU’s Product Center to develop business and marketing plans that helped the company successfully manage the startup. COURTESY PHOTO |
WEST MICHIGAN — Esthetician Nancy Metzger was determined to create skin care products that granddaughter Brittanie could tolerate, despite allergies and sensitivities to many foods and substances. Michelle Jester, Nancy’s daughter and Brittanie’s mom, was looking for ways to supplement her income from her Cedar Springs home, so she could attend to her daughter’s special needs herself.
In 2007, mother and daughter launched Brittanie’s Thyme, which markets organic, homemade products including facial scrubs, insect repellent and sinus-relief pillows.
The products sold well at craft shows, but it was business advice they got from Michigan State University’s Product Center that helped Brittanie’s Thyme make the leap into 80 retail stores nationwide. Sales doubled in one year, Metzger said.
“Our third partner (Yvonne Peterson) went looking for no-cost expertise on how to develop a website, and found the Michigan State University Product Center, which fit a much bigger bill,” Metzger said. “They counseled us on our business plan in a way that was critical yet very encouraging. It was what we needed to grow.”
Brittanie’s Thyme is among 130 small agriculture-based businesses that will be participating in the Making It In Michigan conference and trade show on Wednesday, Oct. 19 at the Lansing Center in downtown Lansing.
The event, now in its fourth year, is hosted by the MSU Product Center, which has advised many budding entrepreneurs in areas ranging from food safety and packaging to marketing.
Keynote speaker will be David Browne, senior analyst with Mintel Syndicated Reports. His consumer reports focus on the natural and organic foods markets.
Morning breakout sessions will be on growing a small business, nutrition and wellness for the food industry and getting products to market. The afternoon trade show is designed to help small businesses network and connect with potential customers.
Pre-registering at makingitinmichigan.msu.edu is strongly encouraged, but not required. Registration costs $70 per person.
“Proof that our efforts are having an effect is the fact that Meijer plans to debut “Pure Michigan” sections featuring Michigan-made products in September at 60 of its stores,” said Matt Birbeck, a counselor with the center.
Birbeck said many agriculture-based businesses are rooted in a treasured family recipe, a cherished lifestyle, or a profound family need, like health issues that inspired Brittanie’s Thyme.
People who start these small businesses are very knowledgeable about their product, but often lack the expertise to get that product on store shelves, Birbeck said.
The Product Center — whose staff includes soon-to-graduate students in “capstone” courses — links business owners with university resources at no cost.
Since its inception in 2003, the MSU Product Center has assisted in the launch or expansion of almost 200 businesses and created about 750 jobs. Cumulative first-year sales approach $310 million, according to Birbeck.
“I thought making goat cheese would be a fun little thing to do in retirement,” said Barbara Jenness, a veterinary technician who had a long career at zoos before launching Dancing Goat Creamery five years ago in Byron Center. “I knew how to work with the animals. I had to learn the rest.”
Jenness studied cheese making in Vermont, Texas and Montreal. She milks a small herd of 28 goats and makes 260 pounds of goat cheese a week which is purchased by San Chez, Bistro Bella Vida, Greenwell and other eateries.
Restaurants are the only form of advertising Jenness needs as the satisfied diners often seek her out at the Fulton Street Farmer’s Market in Grand Rapids.
Jenness also makes “Udderly Wonderful Soap” from extra goat’s milk, but these days she says goat cheese orders require every drop her herd can produce.
She said she’s not interested in growing her business, but participates in Making It In Michigan to promote the ideals of eating healthy and buying local.
The MSU Product Center helped Jenness with packaging and the Dancing Goat Creamery logo.
The Little Rooster Bread Company will debut a new line of crackers and open its first retail store in late August — both milestones growing out of its association with the MSU Product Center.
The company has five employees who bake organic bread and rolls with locally produced ingredients at Lubbers Farm in northwest Grand Rapids. Lubbers’ family embraced natural food production techniques after Casey’s sister, Jamie, was diagnosed with cancer at age 6. Jamie is now 25.
Little Rooster supplies 40 area restaurants and stores. It also sells bread at the Rockford and Fulton Street farmers markets.
“I’m a guy who dreams big,” said owner Casey Lubbers, who studied bread-making at the San Francisco Baking Institute. “Advice from the Product Center is helping us get there.”
