Michigan State University Product Center holds annual Making it in Michigan conference
EAST LANSING, Mich. - A Detroit startup helping former prison inmates re-enter society by baking tasty pound cakes and sweet potato pies will be among enterprises honored for overcoming adversity by Michigan State University at a statewide food marketing conference. Down Home Cook'n will be one of two companies named winners Thursday of the "Barrier Buster Award" by the MSU Product Center at its second annual Making it in Michigan conference in Lansing.
(Media-Newswire.com) - EAST LANSING, Mich. — A Detroit startup helping former prison inmates re-enter society by baking tasty pound cakes and sweet potato pies will be among enterprises honored for overcoming adversity by Michigan State University at a statewide food marketing conference.
Down Home Cook’n will be one of two companies named winners Thursday of the “Barrier Buster Award” by the MSU Product Center at its second annual Making it in Michigan conference in Lansing.
“We’re looking at down-home type desserts that people love from their childhood and their roots, but can’t really find them,” said Joseph Williams, himself a former inmate and founder of the bakery and its parent organization, New Creations Community Outreach Inc. The year-old business, operating overnights in a borrowed restaurant kitchen, bakes wholesome products sold by 10 local independent supermarkets.
“We’re trying to find people who typically might not make it into the job market and who don’t have a good work ethic yet, don’t have good work experience, and to develop them into good employees and to train them,” Williams said. “That is a challenge. Some of these people have never had a job before.”
The company is devoted to environmental stewardship as well, pursuing establishment of a state-of-the-art location of its own and using recycled packaging.
It will be one of four companies recognized at the conference Thursday morning.
“What we’re looking for is an individual or company that’s had to overcome significant problems or barriers to start their business or expand their business,” Product Center Associate Director Tom Kalchik said.
The other Barrier Buster honoree this year is the Michigan Milk Producers Association, a farmer-owned processing and marketing cooperative.
With Michigan milk production growing up to 5 percent annually, some milk now must be shipped out of state due to lack of processing capacity. Efforts to expand the cooperative’s plant in the Clinton County community of Ovid, stymied in negotiations for an abandoned railroad right-of-way, bore fruit last year as part of a state-facilitated “rails to trails” agreement.
The result is a $35 million expansion to add milk production capacity from 3 million pounds a day to 5 million, and adding 10 jobs. The MMPA now is considering investing $18 million in a spray dryer facility to process milk powders, perhaps at the Ovid plant.
Other honorees, chosen from among nominee-clients of the MSU Product Center:
Best Innovative Business: Learn Great Foods, Bay View. Owned and operated by Ann Dougherty, Learn Great Foods conducts sustainable farm tours with “culinary adventures” and cooking classes. Most Successful Business Transition: Maeder Brothers Quality Pellets, Weidman. The Maeder family’s sawmill business responded to the loss of pulp mill customers for its byproduct wood chips and sawdust by investing in a pellet mill to supply owners of wood-fired heating stoves. That move added 11 jobs and preserved 19. The MSU Product Center, part of the College of Agriculture and Natural Resources, assists entrepreneurs to develop and commercialize high value, consumer-responsive products and services in the food and agriculture sectors. For more information, click to www.aec.msu.edu/product/. Information on the day-long Making it in Michigan conference, which starts at 8 a.m. Nov. 13 at the Lansing Center, is at www.makingitinmichigan.msu.edu/.
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Michigan State University has been advancing knowledge and transforming lives through innovative teaching, research and outreach for more than 150 years. MSU is known internationally as a major public university with global reach and extraordinary impact. Its 17 degree-granting colleges attract scholars worldwide who are interested in combining education with practical problem solving.
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