News

Can-do spirit- Helena-area food producers work together for success.

Roberta Knapp couldn’t be prouder of her family recipe for gourmet salsa.
She bubbles with joy as she describes it: “It’s all-natural gourmet, rich, spicy and a combination of tomatoes, peppers and onions,
and the right type of hot.”

By CHRISTINA QUINN, IR Business Writer

Knapp always knew the salsa was popular; however, she never thought it would be possible to package and sell.
That changed when she met the right people — experienced Helena area food producers who work together to bottle, ship and
market their products.

Ernie Nunn, proud winner of Montana’s best barbecue sauce award, told her producing food in Helena is an obtainable goal and
he hooked her up with Mark Adams, owner of East Helena’s Montana Canneries.
Adams got the Food and Drug Administration’s approval and not long afterwards began producing Montana Salsa for Knapp.

In the meantime, Knapp’s husband Ken kept pushing her to market, to label and to get the recipe just right for Adams to mass
produce.
“I just couldn’t believe the day we came out here (to Montana Canneries) putting the labeling on. It was amazing,” Knapp said,
sitting on a stool in the kitchen where Adams makes the salsa.
In his eighth year canning foods, Adams has assisted many small entrepreneurs like Knapp in entering the food industry by bottling
and making food products in what once was East Helena’s Corner Bar.

He pinned up an address on the outside of the vacated wood-facade building, turned the bar counter into a bottling counter, the
lounge into a storage unit and the kitchen into miniature assembly line.
Many of his clients say they wouldn’t have gotten past the FDA approval process nor could they afford the bottling costs without
Adams, who entered the food industry after his body gave in to the strain of construction work.
Most canneries only take orders of 50,000 or more, he said.

For people like Rosemary Erickson, who is trying to get her sweet-hot mustard on the market to compete with French’s Mustard and
other big-name mustard producers, that kind of production would be an overwhelming task.
Adams allows her to start small, Erickson said.
“Otherwise, I couldn’t really do it,” she said. “I mean if you’re going to do it, you have to do it locally because it wouldn’t be cost
effective otherwise.”

Erickson’s first batch of Willy D’s mustard — named after her fisherman father — will be ready to ship to area ski resorts this week, she
said, handing out samples of her sauce, which, she says, tastes great on pretzels.
Once the products are made, Erickson said she knows shipping and marketing work will become obstacles.
For Nunn, shipping his Ernie’s Silos Inn Bar-B-Q Sauce for the past three years was an added chore to running his Townsend
restaurant. But, it didn’t take him long to team up with other Helena area businesses facing the same dilemma.

Now, he calls in an order from Adams and picks up the stock within a week, Nunn said.
Then, Helena’s Ocean Beauty Seafood ships the barbecue sauce to stores along its route across the state while delivering its own
fresh seafood, according to Todd Mee, manager of the fresh seafood company.

Ocean Beauty trucks go to all major cities anyway, Mee said. This is just another way to help Montana companies get their products
out and it also adds another line item for the seafood company to distribute. In addition to fish and Nunn’s sauce, Ocean Beauty
delivers mustard and about four other food products made in the state.
“It’s one Montana company helping another Montana business,” Nunn said.
This networking also holds true for marketing the product.

Dillard’s, The Pan Handler and other Helena businesses are key players in that process.
Along the Walking Mall in Helena, the Made in Montana Store has hundreds of local food products.
“We’re willing to work with the smaller companies — the companies that really don’t have a huge sales rep,” said Shari Hunter,
owner of Helena’s Made in Montana Store. “I guess I like to see the smaller companies, you know the independently owned
businesses, succeed in marketing their product.”

The products are also popular both as novelty gifts and as tourist attractions, she added.
“Especially when people are new to the area they want to see what type of products are made in the area, and I think food is on the
top of their list,” Hunter said.

The packaging, labeling and taste are all important marketing points, according to Hunter.
An example of success is Knapp’s salsa, which with its more expensive gold and green labels has gone from local store shelves to
shops in a third of Montana within months of marketing. Montana City Grill’s huckleberry barbecue sauce is also hard to keep on
shelves, according to Hunter.

Still, it’s hard to get products into grocery stores headquartered out of state, Adams said.
The Helena area, which is in its infancy in the value-added food industry, is still developing a track record for reliable producers
and good products that can stay in business and handle large demands.
Being in business for eight years, Adams says he is earning that tract record. In his first three years of business, he produced
100,000 jars. Today, he produces that much a year to be the largest co-packer in Montana, Adams said.

Now, he and his wife Sandy are trying to get closer to the large consumer markets by opening up a Montana Canneries in Eufala,
Ala. There, the company will be able to bottle products and save on shipping costs to the East Coast, he said.

He’ll still keep his shop in the old Corner Bar open for new ideas from the locals.
For Sandy MacDonald, otherwise known as Helena’s Budweiser distributor, it’s a smoky, apple and beer flavor barbecue sauce.
Sandy Mac’s BBQ Sauce is a popular sell in the local bars, he said.
Reporter Christina Quinn can be reached at 447-4075.

http://www.helenair.com/business/1F1.html

Posted in:

Sorry, we couldn't find any posts. Please try a different search.

Leave a Comment

You must be logged in to post a comment.