we’re kinda famous

…kinda…

Our manager Mary went on KOLR10 to talk to Tom Trtan and our friend Beth Domann about all of the delicious and amazing thing we have in season right now! She did a great job — check it out!

 

a little media attention

after an extended manhunt to track down and photograph the elusive brad nelson, the springfield business journal has produced an article about our little store.

Brian Hom
Contributing Writer

In a 1,200-square-foot retail space at the edge of one of Springfield’s oldest and most tight-knit neighborhoods, a grand scheme is underway to change the way people shop and eat. The combination of retail grocery space, commercial kitchen and a mission-driven partnership could become a new model for spreading the gospel of buying and eating local fare.

Homegrown Foods LLC was launched in 2010, originally occupying a 500-square-foot standalone structure at South Pickwick Avenue and Cherry Street that at one time housed a Brown Derby. By 2012, it had outgrown the tiny confines of the former drive-up liquor store and moved a mere 10 yards southward into a retail strip center on Pickwick.

Homegrown Foods’ mix of locally grown and prepared products blended well with the area’s eclectically earthy merchants Zen3 Spa, Pickwick Underground Framing, Tea Bar & Bites cafe and Josh Mitchell’s art gallery. Despite healthy annual revenue of around $200,000, owner/operator Amanda Milsap Owen decided after the birth of her second child in 2012 that she needed to step away from the long days retail entrepreneurship demands.

The business transformation that followed is unique and loosely formed, focusing as much on purpose as profitability. Longtime Milsap family friend Brad Nelson secured a $50,000 loan to purchase the storefront operations. The Springfield firefighter spent his first year at the Homegrown helm learning the business, adjusting retail space and trying out new items – all of which are either locally grown or produced and/or organic. Under Nelson’s watch, sales have increased 15 percent to finish 2013 at just under $250,000.

Nelson has very few hard and fast rules about the brands he stocks – “I don’t want to be a zealot” – but remains focused on balancing both the viability of his store’s inventory and the philosophical commonality within the local foods industry.

“Our commitment is to local [products] but also to be a neighborhood community grocery store,” he says. “We can’t be that if we only sell local seasonal produce.”

For the organic nonlocal products, Nelson researches each company’s environmental and fair trade performance, as well as marketability of the product.

“I want to build the kind of place that my grandfather would recognize as a grocery store, with real food in it,” he says. “If you buy something here, you should feel decent about it. You know there’s been some thought put into what it is, what it represents and where it comes from – and how it affects all of us.”

Some of the broadest impact, though, is happening behind the scenes.

While Nelson was taking over Homegrown’s storefront, Owen was busy in the back, overseeing a $130,000 remodel that allowed for the licensing of a commercial kitchen. The new space includes additional walk-in cooler and freezer space, along with specialized equipment for bulk food processing.

The renovations were courtesy of a Missouri Foundation for Health grant, awarded to the Ozarks Regional YMCA’s Local Sprouts program, aka the Farm to Child Collaborative. In return for the capital investment, Owen’s Homegrown Food Hub provides locally grown snacks twice a week for participants in the YMCA’s after-school programs operated in conjunction with Springfield Public Schools.

The partnership has long-reaching ramifications, including a rare break from traditional funding via co-mingled capital and operating funds within the same grant. Providing semiweekly snack distribution of local fresh fruit, salads and other healthy snacks to area students, the three-year, $300,000 grant also straddles the nonprofit line by allocating funds to both the nonprofit YMCA and private for-profit Homegrown Food Hub.

Owen says she’s not aware of another community effort with Local Sprouts’ multipronged approach to combine educational curriculum with local food purchasing, preparation and distribution.

“Unfortunately, the program [standards] may have to be bent if we’re going to hit our goal of reaching all 30,000 students in Springfield schools,” she says.

Though fairly new, it is well on its way to that major benchmark. Beginning in fall 2013 at 11 Title I schools, it has since served 25,000 locally grown or sourced snacks. According to Stephanie Smith, coordinator of YMCA’s Local Sprouts, the program currently provides 4,000 servings each month to students at 22 school sites. That number will jump again this fall, when a dozen additional schools will begin receiving Homegrown’s semiweekly deliveries for children in the Prime Time after-school programs.

Smith notes this benefits not only the YMCA and the kids it serves, but also local farmers by creating a steadier demand for their product and driving infrastructure growth in local urban agriculture.

“One happy side effect of our program is the creation of a more affordable local food market,” she says. “We really just want to be a leader in the community in this area and get more people eating local and healthy.”

Homegrown’s commercial kitchen is now leased full-time to Katie Made bakery owner Katie Kring. In keeping with the collective ethos, Kring allows the kitchen to be utilized by Owen to make the snacks for Local Sprouts, as well as opening it up to like-minded food producers for rent by the hour.