By Michael Howell
The Ravalli County Economic Development Authority (RCEDA) is looking for community input concerning the possibility of establishing a food processing center at the Entrepreneurship Center located on Old Corvallis Road north of Hamilton. RCEDA Economic Development Specialist John Schneeberger has prepared a survey to help assess the need and feasibility of a processing center that would provide producers, in Missoula and Ravalli Counties, with a facility to process locally produced agricultural products and proprietary ingredients. Producers would use the facility to convert unprocessed food into packaged, ready to eat products for value-added sales. The processing center would be a retrofit of the Ravalli Entrepreneurship Center, owned and operated by the Ravalli County Economic Development Authority.
Schneeberger said that the idea of a centrally located food processing facility in the valley was being considered for a number of reasons. One motivating factor is the need to find a replacement for the Bitterroot College, one of the key tenants currently occupying a portion of the Entrepreneurship Center. The college has plans to move to downtown Hamilton this summer, leaving a vacancy at the center that the proposed food processing center could fill.
According to Schneeberger, the valley has many food producers including vegetable, cattle, poultry and honey operations, to name a few. He said RCEDA has provided consulting services to several small businesses over the years producing such things as dry ingredient mixes, sauces, jams and jellies, and other special recipes. He said there is a trend nationwide to develop micro processing centers that can be used by multiple enterprises.
“All this makes us think that a food processing center might be a good fit for the valley,” said Schneeberger. He said that there is obviously some need for such a center in the valley, but the extent of that need is still in question and the survey being circulated could help get a handle on the real size of the need as well as what kind of processing is most needed. There are some good working models around. One is located in Livingston at the Livingston Food Bank. He said they have bottling and flash-freeze capabilities operating on a micro-scale.
Schneeberger said that the proposed food processing center would not be a butchering and meat packing facility like the poultry processing center proposed by Homestead Organics that recently hit the news.
“We would not be in competition with the proposed poultry processing center or any existing meat processing facility in the valley,” said Schneeberger. He said, instead, customers would bring in their already processed chickens and make their custom chicken soup.
He believes there are close to a half dozen commercial kitchens already operating in the valley, producing such things as bread and jams. He said the question is how much demand is really out there for such facilities and the survey that is circulating could help determine that. He said the facility being considered would have a more specialized focus on packaging, labeling, bar-coding and even business planning as part of its services.
Schneeberger emphasized that the proposed poultry processing center at Homestead Organics is a totally separate enterprise. He said that project was moving forward. Following a failed grant proposal for construction of that facility, the prospective entrepreneurs initiated a successful Kickstarter campaign on the internet that has met its goal of raising $21,000. That money will now be used as a match and demonstration of local support in a renewed grant application.
Anyone interested in answering the survey questionnaire can pick up a hard copy at the RCEDA Entrepreneurship Center at 274 Old Corvallis Road, Suite A. Or the survey may be completed on-line on the RCEDA web page www.rceda.org.