A Minnesota non-profit could help create Idaho jobs ? Idaho ...

by Anne Wallace Allen
Published: June 8,2011
Time posted: 11:59 am
Tags: Jodi Peterson, META

Business facilitator Jodi Peterson met Dan Dolenar, the produce manager at Albertsons in Boise?s North End, when she walked into the store last year with produce from local organic farmers. (Photo by Glenn Landberg)

Meridian farmer Lee Rice was seeking a buyer for the tomatoes he wanted to grow. Boise-based salsa maker David McCown was looking for 5,000 pounds of local Roma tomatoes.

In February, Boise-based business facilitator Jodi Peterson introduced them, and if the tomatoes grow well this summer, by fall the two entrepreneurs will be doing business together.

Peterson does her work through a one-year, $125,000 grant for MicroEnterprise Training & Assistance, or META, which provides classes, microloans, and consulting to small businesses. Right in keeping with META?s purpose, the grant, from the Minnesota-based Northwest Area Foundation, is specifically designed to help new businesses and small-scale entrepreneurs make the connections they need to succeed. It supplies a business development model that relies not on capital investment, but on a mixture of social and business acumen and contacts. META?s executive director, Ron Berning, said he plans to apply for the grant again for next year.

The grant that pays Peterson runs one year, from last January when she was hired. Her grant specifically targets helping green businesses, and Peterson?s own interest lies in promoting local food. Her goal is to create 20 jobs this year.

While the purpose of the program is to provide counseling, training and consulting, there?s also a small financial component; $35,000 in microfinancing loans is available.

The largest loan Peterson can supply to any one business is $5,000. She loaned that amount to an unemployed senior citizen named Larry Hyatt of Boise, who invented a solar shade that goes on the south-facing sides of buildings. He used the money to develop a prototype and is now manufacturing the shade in Nampa.

The sociable Peterson is a former marketing and advertising director for the Boise Co-op, Idaho Green Expo, and Green Works Idaho, the organization behind the popular expo.

?I?ve always been in marketing, advertising, event production, and I?ve met a lot of people through the different work I?ve done,? Peterson said. ?My strength is those relationships; I can help them help each other.?

Rice, who was juggling a day job with his new farming business, didn?t have time to network with possible buyers. McCown, who also works part-time for an air charter broker, was having a hard time finding the local tomatoes he wanted. Peterson knew them both from her many years in food work in the area.

Peterson helped Marsing-area beef rancher Ed Wilsey, a partner in a small company called Homestead Natural Foods, with marketing after Wilsey started looking for new ways to sell his grass-fed beef. He hadn?t had much luck with marketing on his own.

?We had a label made, we created a website, and the first year we kept six big steers,? Wilsey said. ?We put an ad in the Boise paper and never got one response.?

Wilsey?s difficulty was in selling the whole cow, when most of the buyers he found only wanted certain cuts of meat. Wilsey had been moving away from conventional means of raising cattle on his 11,000 owned and leased acres for about six years. He said he couldn?t compete on the beef market with larger companies, and was drawn to the health benefits of raising grass-fed beef. But he couldn?t find a way to make money at it.

?They were talking about maybe doing a frankfurter,? Peterson said. ?I demanded they make a frankfurter, because I just knew that was going to be an added revenue stream.?

Peterson connected Wilsey with the Boise Co-op, where customers have shown they?re willing to pay $7 a pound for his locally made frankfurter. She also got his beef into several restaurants known for serving local food, including Bittercreek Ale House, Red Feather Lounge, Jenny?s Lunch Line, and Donnie Mac?s Trailer Park Cuisine.

And Peterson steered Wilsey to an Earth Day food event this spring at Boise State University where students and faculty tried the franks, and Wilsey got to talk to his potential customers about his work. Homestead Beef will have a continuing relationship with Boise State now, Peterson said.

?She?s got a lot of good ideas,? Wilsey said. ?She gets us out in front of people all the time.?

Peterson met Dan Dolenar, the produce manager at the Albertsons store in Boise?s North End, when she walked into the store last spring as a marketer for a handful of individual organic farmers. The store started using local organic products last summer, and now she?s working to get other local farm products into the store.

McCown bought his three-year-old salsa business in May 2010 and said he?s increased production by 50 percent since then. Like Wilsey, he credited Peterson with helping him get his product into local restaurants and grocery stores. He added that she introduced him to the idea of exploring customers in food service as well.

?To me, she?s not a deal closer, she?s a brokering connection,? McCown said. ?She?s introducing me to people who can be of use to me.?

As for jobs, Peterson?s still aiming for 20 this year. She estimates nine people are now making sales - and some money - from the work she?s done since January. Another three have started working on new businesses but haven?t had a sale yet.

?I work with extraordinary people who are fighting the good fight and doing work that?s hard and really believing in what they do,? Peterson said. ?It?s really rewarding to help them. They?ve been doing this on their own.?

Source: http://idahobusinessreview.com/2011/06/08/a-minnesota-non-profit-could-help-create-idaho-jobs/

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