COURTESY OF MICHAEL KANTER Community Co-Pack is a co-packer and business incubator that works with small, BIPOC-owned food- manufacturing businesses to help them scale. According to Hannah Kullberg, business development director of Community Co-Pack, “co-packing” is a term that can mean a couple of different things. It can refer to simply putting a food product in a package, or repackaging, after it’s manufactured — or it can refer to contract manufacturing, where a company will contract with a manufacturing facility rather than own its own site full-time. While co-packing happens at all levels in manufacturing—and is particularly prevalent in food manufacturing due to the seasonal nature of the product — it’s particularly important for smaller companies that may only need manufacturing space for small batches of products. This summer the Oregon Department of Agriculture launched a survey project to talk to food producers and manufacturers about what they need. The results aren’t final yet, but multiple people who spoke with OB for this story said there is a crying need for more co-packing spaces in the state. “There are these big gaps in the co-packing ecosystem,” says Aidan Currie, founder and CEO of Portland’s Swift Cider, which produces cider in Portland but also offers co-packing space for other companies to produce small batches of beverages. Some of them are just starting out, but Currie has also worked with farmers who aren’t normally in the beverage business, who want to make a limited run of a special-edition beverage. “[Co-packing] allows people to scale that otherwise would have no opportunity to scale,” Currie says. “It also allows people that are already at scale to grow their business before they build the new facility. If you know that eventually you’re going to have the revenue to support a 2-million-unit-peryear facility, then you can go borrow your neighbor’s [facility] until you get there and really hedge your risk a lot on that bench.” For example, Currie says, if a business has just inked a deal to get its product on grocery store shelves, the demand is uncertain. “Everybody hopes for the best, but the reality of it is that demand is its own thing. And so you have to kind of sit there and wait. So a lot of people need this extra capacity in order to make these commitments to these large retailers just in case something starts selling a lot faster,” Currie says. While Guerrero has been able to scale up her business at a pace that worked for her, the lack of co-packing infrastructure has sometimes led small businesses to leave the state as their companies grew — or to close up shop altogether. In 2013 Michael Kanter—a former restaurantcook—startedmakingEliot’sNutButters, a line of flavored nut butters like honey- chipotle peanut butter, spicy Thai peanut butter and pistachio-date almond butter — as well as a classic salted peanut butter. “I stumbled on this idea while eating a bag of spicy cashews,” Kanter tells OB. “I was like, ‘These are great by the handful. Why not make them into some nut butter? I threw them into the food processor, tasted them and thought, ‘This is pretty good.’” By the end of last year, the product was available in 600 stores in 40 states, including Formerly New Seasons Central Kitchen, this kitchen facility will be shared by Guerrero and Community Co-Pack NW. Michael Kanter and his line of nut butters JASON E. KAPLAN 19
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