Meaningful Marketplace Podcast Meaningful Marketplace Podcast, The Joy Of Creation Production House

We continue our journey with the @nwrockymtnrfbc (Regional Food Business Center) exploring the great state of Colorado with our Colorado Co-Host, Mike Gabel of Colorado State University's Food Innovation Center and our guest, Sam Nelson.

#190 Kristine Carey, Naturally Boulder: Galvanizing the natural products industry through education, networking, and celebrations for the Colorado community.

Our show today kicks off with a bang. Rick DeSimone, founder of Quarantine Project Hot Sauce, goes back to the beginning of Rick’s company. It was December 7th, 2020; Rick remembers exactly. He had been furloughed from his job and was Netflix-binging. Bored, Rick went to the refrigerator and started digging around for snacks. At the back, Rick saw a hot sauce-making kit that he’d received as a Christmas gift years prior. He’d always enjoyed spicy
foods, so the possibilities piqued his interest.

As we continue learning about the rich food industry in Colorado, our Meaningful Marketplace hosts are again joined by co-host Mike Gabel of CSU Spur’s Food Innovation Center. Today, our guest started to change her relationship with food after her children were born. That’s when Farnosh Family, owner of Sun Ghee, decided to begin her health journey. Farnosh started with many diets eliminating gluten, then soy, dairy, and other top allergens. Nothing seemed to help until she zeroed in on non- or minimal-processed foods, and a large part of that regimen was cooking with ghee. The entrepreneur in Farnosh spurred her to think about selling her ghee in boutique shops around her town but quickly found out you don’t do that with food, it is a much more regulated business.

This episode starts our tour of Colorado foodpreneurs and our guide is Mike Gabel of Colorado State University. Mike runs the Food Innovation Center at the Spur campus, a brand-new campus located in downtown Denver. The vision began ten years ago with the idea of creating a campus that would be open to aspiring college students – K through 12th grade – to come and observe a day in the life of a veterinarian, a food scientist or a water conservationist. The three big areas of the campus are food and agriculture, human and animal health and water conservation. The buildings are open to the public and all programs are behind glass so the touring groups get a true behind-the-scenes look at each profession. This was an opportunity for Mike to create a Food Innovation Center closely based on Oregon State University’s Food Innovation Center, directed by our host Sarah Masoni. The Spur’s FIC contains a commercial kitchen that serves as programming for the public, nutrition classes, events such as chef events, research and development and of course, product development for the foodpreneurs. Also, there are smaller labs; a meat lab and a dairy lab. Sarah Masoni has visited the CSU Spur campus and was incredibly impressed being able to watch veterinary operations in the animal science building and watching people learn to rice horses. Sarah was equally impressed with the architecture of the buildings, especially the water building. There is an historical link; the campus is positioned close to the Denver Stockyards where for a century people have come to buy and sell cattle and the stock show still is in existence. There are around 800,000 people attending this show and provide a perfect audience for Spur exposure to what food technology is being created in Colorado. Saying they “stole the idea from Oregon State”, Mike explains how the FIC utilizes expo events similar to OSU’s FIC events to network with makers to extol the virtues of the FIC and tout the impressive list of equipment, mentors, scientists and connections they provide to help the entrepreneur be successful with their dream. Their last expo showcased 19 different makers and different brands that could be sampled and special times set aside for distributors and buyers to mix and mingle. One of the more fascinating future foodpreneurs is McKay, an eleven (or twelve?) year old maker who is learning to balance school life while scaling a product she has been working on for the last couple of years. Launching an official partnership with Naturally Boulder, https://www.naturallyboulder.org/, has been a boon to pushing Spur’s mission. Naturally Boulder is an organization with a mission to bring together entrepreneurs, investors, brands, retailers and industry experts to make Colorado the best place to launch and scale natural products. This mutual networking and the ability to offer Spur’s huge vault of technical resources to NB’s expertise in regulation knowledge has paid great dividends. Spur’s campus is as open to the public as possible, and keycard access for the 24-hour entrepreneurs is part of that open policy. Many of the programs are bi-lingual, a reflection of the Spanish-speaking population of the area. And you can’t discuss Colorado’s famous foods without acknowledging its number one well-known product. Host Sarah Marshall did the research to discover its Rocky Mountain Oysters. For the uninitiated, tune in to the interview and find out the answer to this paradox.

As we close the chapter on Wyoming foodpreneurs for the season, we end with an interview with Melissa Hemken of Central Wyoming College, who has been co-hosting this series. In addition to all she coordinates with Central, Melissa is the founder of her own company, Melissahof Hatchery, a chick-raising farm that delivers healthy day-old chicks to local poultry farmers. “Hof” means “farm” in German. Living near Lander, Wyoming, Melissa discovered that rural expansiveness hindered the mail shipment of healthy day-old chicks. Recognizing that other Wyoming folks also need healthy chicks for their flocks, Melissa raises dual-purpose heavy-breed poultry from which to hatch purebred chicks. When eggs are hatched into chicks, there is a 50/50 gender split. Most customers purchase the female chicks – called pullets- as they want to raise egg-layers. Melissa raises the rooster chicks, nicknamed the “McNuggets,” on pasture for the farmers who raise chicken for their meat.

Now, for our interview today, Britni Haar of Cloud Peak Cultures, a local kombucha clan of kid-friendly home brewers who are working their kitchen magic, is conjuring another batch of fermented tea. Founded by Britni and Kandi Broersma, they are at the forefront of Sheridan, Wyoming’s burgeoning kombucha culture, as Sheridan’s first commercial kombucha venture. Britni’s journey began in 2015 when her family took a trip to China to visit friends. One of the friends had been taught to brew kombucha and shared it with Britni, who loved the beverage. It got her thinking she also could be brewing kombucha and when she got back to the US she started her research. Britni made the decision to buy the starter culture, called scoby, from a fellow kombucha brewer, rather than try to grow her own. She began brewing and the story is a familiar one: Britni gave some to friends who told her she could sell her brew. Then Kandi came on board to help with the business and in 2018 they started selling at the Sheridan farmers market with great success. That propelled them into selling at the local greenhouse farmers market, a year-round market. The business grew but life has its road bumps; Kandi had a baby, started home schooling and the business was too much for her to continue so Britni has been solo since. But that hasn’t stopped her from expanding. Springboarding off her fermenting expertise, she has developed a line of fermented jalapenos used in the dip Britni also sells. Of course, Britni has expanded the kombucha flavors by blending different ingredients, huckleberry-lemonade being her favorite. Flavored drinks are made by letting the kombucha blend sit for about a week. Then the fruit juices are added and the brew sits for another three or four days. It self-carbonites then it is refrigerated. Alcohol content is not a fine science in the kombucha industry and Britni’s brews are pretty much in line with other kombucha drinks. However, Britni does say her kombuchas are more mild and less tart than most commercial kombuchas. As for the future, Cloud Peak Cultures is covered under Wyoming cottage laws so she can sell her beverage without the heavy regulation. But if she wants to grow, that will be a game time decision. At present, Clout Peak Cultures is not her full time occupation, so she is contemplating her next move.