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March 7, 2005

Appetite for growth | A new program aims to help small specialty food producers run their businesses more effectively

By Joseph Thompson
Five days a week, Deedee Look works part-time doing office and clerical work for a stationery supplier in Portland. But every Saturday morning she sets down the hat of an employee and dons the toque of a value-added food producer. From 9 a.m. to 2 p.m., Look is in her Portland kitchen making dog food for Dakota's Dejeuner, a young microenterprise with one employee ˆ— herself.

Every week, Look prepares about 10 pounds of all-natural dog food, packages it and then freezes it for eventual sale. She started Dakota's Dejeuner two years ago, after her Chinook began to suffer from gastric and allergy problems. A holistic veterinarian introduced Look to a raw-foods diet for dogs. "In like three days, he was a changed dog," said Look. "I was feeding him a recipe for about two years and then developed [the recipe] for customers."

Like many microenterprise operators, Look starting by testing Dakota's Dejeuner on friends ˆ— or, in this case, friends' dogs. She branched out from there with sales to individual dog owners via word of mouth. Now she is trying to make the leap to wholesaling. While she hasn't broken even yet, Look has gained a wholesale account in Massachusetts. Other wholesalers "are positive," she says, "and some are interested."

As she begins to expand Dakota's Dejeuner, Look is facing the growing pains common to the value-added-food products industry and to microenterprises across the state: getting shelf space in stores, fulfilling the minimum requirements of distributors and marketing effectively. To deal with some of those challenges, she's participating in a new program, funded by a grant from the state Department of Economic and Community Development, that hopes to boost the business skills and credit worthiness of value-added food producers across the state.

Taste of Success, as the effort has been dubbed, had its public kickoff last month, with an online networking meeting attended by 27 producers in seven locations across Maine. With a $400,000 budget and a year to go before the program wraps up, Taste of Success aims to help an industry full of home-based businesses and microenterprises become more organized, efficient and professional. Whether those goals will be accomplished remains to be seen.

The need for them, though, is clear. Cal Hancock, owner of Hancock Gourmet Lobster Co. in Cundys Harbor, says value-added food producers could benefit tremendously from networking alone. Through programs like Taste of Success, she hopes to see food producers work together to create what she calls a "reservoir of resources," and to reach out to other organizations in the state that could aid them. "People who are producing food of any kind," she says, "really need to talk to other people who are producing food, to find out about various things from packaging to resources to shipping to whatever."
Building a model

The Taste of Success initiative grew out of a 1997 effort by the Legislature to study the needs of microenterprises. (A recent University of Maine study found that microenterprises, businesses that employ 10 people or less, are a small but growing part of the Maine economy. According to the study, the majority of value-added food producers, of which there are more than 600 across the state, fall into this category.) "There was a sense that small businesses, and particularly microenterprises, needed support," said Brian Dancause, manager of small business assistance for DECD. "And the support they needed was of a technical nature and of a financial nature."

Those conclusions were drawn from a microenterprise study DECD commissioned in 1997. "The report concluded capital wasn't the issue," Dancause said. "The issue was the credit-worthiness of the borrowers and the skills of the business owners."

With the study in mind, the Maine Microenterprise Initiative program was formed in 2000 to help fund entities and partnerships that provide assistance to microenterprises. The program made grants in 2001, but then went unfunded for a few years.

With the 2004 grant, the Maine Centers for Women, Work & Community, along with the Maine Small Business Development Centers and the Maine Gourmet & Specialty Food Producers, received $200,000 for the program that became Taste of Success. The three groups matched the funds, giving them $400,000 total to work with. To comply with the grant's conditions the groups must help to complete 20 business plans, and help to start 15 new businesses. The program also must increase market research for 10 existing businesses, expand the membership of the MGSFP, increase participation in the New England Products Trade Show ˆ— scheduled for March 19 in Portland ˆ— and hold at least two networking meetings. "We need to strengthen the value-added industry among women and low-income families," said Tamara Kaplan, business information specialist for DECD.

A major piece of the program is simply creating the connections among food producers that Hancock mentioned. On Feb. 16, Taste of Success held its first networking meeting, using new Macromedia Breeze software, paid for by the grant, to hold a webcast among producers meeting virtually and in person at Women, Work & Community offices, technology centers and schools across the state.

"The grant is specifically aiming to strengthen the value-added food industry through practical assistance," said Michael Hallundbaek, president of MGSFP. At the February meeting, he said, producers talked about issues specific to each of their businesses. "The facilitators are feeding that summarized information back into the MSBDC and the WWC, and then going back to next online networking meeting with the right people and the right resources to help the individual businesses one-on-one with exactly what their opportunities or challenges are."

In addition, Taste of Success recently unveiled a password-protected Web portal, hosted on Maine SBDC's website, through which producers can discuss topics including marketing and suppliers. The website also offers links to events listings, as well as industry research and information on state regulations. As of late February, about six different members had initiated threads on the discussion boards, and participation seemed to be mounting.

According to Eloise Vitelli, director of program and policy development at Women, Work & Community, the Web portal and online meetings are part of a larger effort to "create a model for delivering training and technical assistance using a combination of technology and live, face-to-face [meetings] that we can replicate for other industries."

After the Taste of Success program ends next March, Vitelli wants to see the model applied to other industries populated by micro-entrepreneurs. "For example," said Vitelli, "the website may be something we can replicate for craft producers and artists."

Next up for Taste of Success is a conference, scheduled for April 26 in Augusta, co-produced with the Maine Grocers Association. In addition to providing food producers with business training, the conference aims to make connections between producers and the grocers who ultimately might stock their products.

Although the program is just getting off the ground, Deedee Look says she has found it a valuable experience, particularly since it's helped her develop relationships with other producers. "They're a couple of years [further] down the road with their businesses than I am," said Look, "and it was great to network with them because they had so much great information to share with me about their challenges and where they are."

Taste of Success

Description: 15-month program to help micro-entrepreneurs in the value-added food industry overcome business challenges more easily dealt with by larger companies

Sponsors: Maine Centers for Women, Work & Community, Maine Small Business Development Centers, Maine Gourmet & Specialty Food Producers

Funding: $200,000 from a Maine Microenterprise Initiative grant from the state Department of Economic and Community Development, plus $200,000 in matching funds from grant recipients

Events: March 16: Online networking meeting; March 19: New England Products Trade Show, Portland; April 26: Taste of Success Conference, Augusta

Contact: Maine Centers for Women, Work & Community, 800-442-2092

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