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CapitalPress.com
Friday, February 26, 2021
People & Places
Startup business supports local ag
By CAROL RYAN DUMAS
Capital Press
TWIN FALLS, Idaho —
Local meat and potato pro-
ducers and processors are
the foundation of a new,
first-of-its-kind
business
in south-central Idaho that
delivers local, high-quality
beef, pork, chicken and pota-
toes to customers’ doorsteps.
The Meat and Potato
Company began operations
in November and is already
seeing high demand for its
restaurant-grade products.
The business is the brain-
child of Travis Dixon, who
spent 25 years in foodser-
vice sales.
“Our purpose is to give
our customers the experi-
ence and flavor of a steak-
house delivered right to their
door,” he said.
A little more than eight
years ago, Dixon started
thinking about a home-de-
livery service that could pro-
vide local, high-quality prod-
ucts directly to consumers.
“I always thought there
was going to be a need for
something like this,” he said.
He started looking into
website domain names and
purchased meatandpotatoco.
com.
“I was hoping to do
something in the future, fig-
uring people would be buy-
ing things online,” he said.
He also started think-
ing about partnerships with
local ranchers, producers
and processors. But with
a busy family life and his
Western Innovator
Joe Beach ..................... Editor & Publisher
Anne Long ................Advertising Manager
Carl Sampson .................. Managing Editor
Jessica Boone ............ Production Manager
Samantha McLaren ....Circulation Manager
Owner: Meat and Potato Com-
pany
Age: 44
Location: Twin Falls, Idaho
Background: 25 years in foodservice sales
Affiliations: Approved by the Idaho Potato Commission,
working toward a local supplier listing with the Idaho Beef
Council
Education: Studied business at College of Southern Idaho
Family: Wife, Jamie; son, Teylor, 18; daughter Alyx, 20
Online: For more information, visit: meatandpotatoco.com
Carol Ryan Dumas/Capital Press
job as a district sales man-
ager for a full-line foodser-
vice distributor it was easy
to lose focus.
Growing requests from
friends and acquaintances
wanting
restaurant-type
products they couldn’t get at
retail stores got him back on
track.
They were looking for
things like aged products
for steakhouses, higher-end
products like giant potatoes
and colossal shrimp — prod-
ucts that allow restaurants to
provide a good eating expe-
rience, he said.
His business can deliver
on those items, as well as
high-quality,
affordable
items people can get in gro-
cery stores.
“We’re trying to hit a cou-
ple of niches,” he said.
The business also deliv-
ers on consumers’ growing
desire for local foods from a
locally owned business that
keeps money in the local
economy, he said.
The company’s aged beef
Established 1928
Capital Press Managers
TRAVIS DIXON
Travis Dixon, owner of the Meat and Potato Company,
with some of the products he offers for home delivery.
EMPOWERING PRODUCERS OF FOOD & FIBER
comes from cattle raised at
Five Rivers feedlot in Malta,
Idaho, southwest of Bur-
ley. All of the cattle are from
the Northwest, and 63% are
from Idaho. All of the feed
for the cattle is grown in the
Mini-Cassia area.
The company’s jumbo
russet potatoes and unique
blend of rainbow fingerling
potatoes, sought after by
top chefs, are grown in the
Magic Valley and Mini-Cas-
sia areas.
Dixon has also partnered
with Independent Meat of
Twin Falls to provide a wide
variety of quality pork prod-
ucts, and he sources his hor-
mone-free,
antibiotic-free
chicken from Draper Val-
ley Farms in Oregon and
Washington.
He wants product that is
“the closest I can get it and
the best I can find,” he said.
The business sources
product from more than 300
family farms in Idaho and the
Pacific Northwest.
In addition to local meat
and potatoes, the company
provides lobster tails and
jumbo and colossal shrimp.
The company offers free
local delivery and is cur-
rently shipping to 38 states,
sending out a couple of hun-
dred boxes a month.
“I have orders going out
all over the place,” he said.
Another plus for environ-
mentally minded custom-
ers is that all the company’s
packaging is recyclable or
biodegradable.
Dixon currently oper-
ates out of another compa-
ny’s commercial facility but
is planning to open his own
retail store later this year
and expand his offerings to
other local vegetables, fruit
and dairy products. He is
also pursuing local bison and
lamb to add to his offerings.
“I’m just itching for a
retail location to sell that kind
of stuff,” he said.
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EO Media Group
dba Capital Press
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To Place Classified Ads
Oregon maltster wins international contest
By JAYSON JACOBY
EO Media Group
BAKER CITY, Ore. —
Behind the glass of beer,
with its photogenic bubbles
and foamy white head, are
Tom Hutchison and his bags
of Eastern Oregon barley.
Hutchison’s place in the
brewing business isn’t the
most prominent.
Yet aside from the typi-
cal odes to pure spring water
and to hops, the dried flow-
ers that infuse beer with its
mouth-puckering bitter bite,
the building blocks for a pint
of ale or lager are stacked in
Hutchison’s building near
the railroad tracks just off
Broadway Street in Baker
City.
And when it comes to
Jayson Jacoby/EO Media Group
Tom Hutchison, who owns Gold Rush Malt in Baker City,
Ore., checks the steel drum where barley is dried.
malting barley, a key ingre-
dient in beer as well as many
distilled spirits such as whis-
key and vodka, Hutchi-
son occupies a lofty place
among his peers.
Hutchison, who started
Gold Rush Malt in 2016,
swept three awards at the
annual Craft Malt Confer-
ence put on by the Craft
Maltsters Guild Feb. 10-12.
Hutchison won gold
medals for both his pilsner
and pale malts during the
online awards ceremony that
took place Feb. 12.
He’ll also be caretaker
Cooperative supports
farming for people of color
By MATTHEW WEAVER
Capital Press
A Washington nonprofit is form-
ing a cooperative for Black, Indige-
nous and other farmers of color.
“You have to start from ground
zero, building a farming community
of people of color,” said Mercy Kar-
iuki-McGee, founder of the Haki
Farmers Collective in Olympia.
Nearly 49,000 farmers in the
U.S. identified as Black in the
2017 Census of Agriculture, a 5%
increase from 46,582 in 2012. They
represent 1.4% of all farmers.
The collective is named “Haki,”
which means “justice” in Swahili, a
widely spoken language in Africa.
The Haki collective wants to
enhance farming traditions and
develop a new generation of farm-
ers of color.
“That knowledge does exist, and
farmers are going back to that,” she
said, pointing to organic and regen-
erative agriculture methods.
Kariuki-McGee and her daugh-
ter, Elisa McGee, started the organi-
zation in 2020 as part of the protests
over George Floyd’s death in May
2020. Kariuki-McGee and her fam-
ily have been involved in helping
the city of Olympia develop pub-
lic safety and community outreach
procedures.
K a r i u -
ki-McGee was
struck by the HAKI FARMERS
presence of a COLLECTIVE
garden and free https://hakifarmers.org/
kitchen in the
middle of pro-
tests in Seattle,
used as a “healing” space filled with
messages of hope and unity. She
wanted to develop a similar garden
in the Olympia-Tacoma area.
The Haki collective will use part
of a community garden donated
by the nonprofit organization Gar-
den-Raised Bounty, or GRuB.
The collective is also receiving
a larger piece of farmland from the
South Sound Community Farm-
Land Trust to develop a BIPOC —
for Black, Indigenous and People of
Color — Farm.
of the traveling Malt Cup
Trophy for the next year as
recipient of the best of show
award.
Hutchison said he knew
he had won at least one
award. Officials from the
Guild told him that in
advance to ensure he would
be watching the awards cer-
emony, which, like the rest
of the annual conference,
took place remotely due to
the COVID-19 pandemic.
But when he heard his
name called not once but
three times, he was, he
admits, “just stunned.”
“It was way more than I
expected,” Hutchison said
on Feb. 16. “It’s the first time
I’ve entered.”
He was the first maltster to
win two gold medals in a sin-
gle competition, according to
the Craft Maltsters Guild.
Hutchison
competed
against 27 other maltsters
from seven countries, 17
states and one Canadian
province.
Each of the 46 samples of
malted barley was evaluated
in multiple ways.
Researchers at Montana
State University’s Barley,
Malt & Brewing Quality Lab
tested each sample.
Then, judges at 17 sites
around the U.S. and Canada
compared the entries’ aroma
and flavor, including nib-
bling on the kernels.
Finally, in the last round,
additional judges reviewed
the lab results and the other
judges’ findings to pick the
winners.
WSU, Black farmer collective look
to raise ‘culturally relevant’ crops
By MATTHEW WEAVER
Capital Press
A new collective for Black farm-
ers and Washington State University
are working to grow crops originally
raised by Black,
Asian and South
American immi-
grants in their
home countries.
A
$40,000
WSU BioAg grant
will allow the
study of “culturally
relevant” staple crop economies within
Black, Indigenous and People of Color
farmer and consumer groups, said Aba
Kiser, project manager for WSU Food
Systems.That includes grains, greens
and roots, said Mercy Kariuki-McGee,
founder of the nonprofit Haki Farmers
Collective in Olympia. Crops include
sorghum, millet, cassava, yams and
medicinal plants.
“(They) are very, very healthy for
you and the ones that people are crav-
ing for,” Kariuki-McGee said.
Kariuki-McGee also points to use of
the entire crop, such as eating pumpkin
or bean leaves.
“Everything that comes out of the
garden is actually used. It doesn’t go to
waste,” she said.
Kariuki-McGee will be project
coordinator. Her organizatioin is called
the Haki Farmers Collective.
“It’s an important piece of removing
systematic racism when you can make
food available to those who need it
most, and it’s a way to close the gap of
food sovereignty,” she said. “It’s very
hard for the immigrants, who usually
end up being the most marginalized,
to have access to food that is healthy,
affordable and easy to grow.”
Indigenous communities used the
crops for a long time, but the “shifting
landscape of migration” changed the
way people eat and take care of their
bodies.
“In America, you shift the way you
eat when you get here, and you try to
adapt as much as possible, but the diet
is not always what is good for you,”
she said. “Trying to introduce those tra-
ditional foods can be very beneficial
dollar-wise and health-wise.”
CALENDAR
Submit upcoming ag-related
events on www.capitalpress.com
or by email to newsroom@capital-
press.com.
THURSDAY MARCH 4
Applied Corrective & Preven-
tive Action (online): 1-5 p.m. This
course will be interactive and
hands-on. Using exercises, actual
scenarios, and group discussions,
you will learn and use several
tools. You will be ready to put
your knowledge to work in your
facility. We will explore common
root cause analysis tools, includ-
ing 5 whys, Failure Mode Effect
Analysis, Fishbone diagram,
cause & effect tools, and relation-
ship diagrams. You will receive
training and templates to use and
modify as needed to create and
maintain an effective corrective
and preventative action program
in your facility. Corrective actions
are not just for food safety issues
but all aspects of a food manu-
facturing facility. Janna Hamlett,
208-731-9363, jannahamlett@
techhelp.org
TUESDAY, MARCH 9
Intentional Adulteration-Food
Defense (online): 8 a.m.-noon. This
Food Defense Course will help you
mitigate the risks and hazards of
intentional contamination in food
operations by protecting vulnera-
ble elements in the agrifood chain
and food production operations.
We will explore Food Defense Plans
to help you build barriers around
vulnerable points to prohibit inten-
tional adulteration. The course fee
is $495/each individual. Janna Ham-
lett, 208-731-9363, jannahamlett@
techhelp.org
TUESDAY MARCH 30
Practical Sensory Programs
for Factories and Quality Manag-
ers (online): 8:30 a.m.-12:30 p.m.
The Practical Sensory Program
course is designed around a learn-
and-apply model. Each partici-
pant will get a kit to have hands-on
activities to reinforce the concepts
learned. He or she will walk away
with practical skills that can be
applied immediately. The course fee
is $285/each individual. Contact:
Catherine Cantley, 208-426-2181,
catherinecantley@techhelp.org
FRIDAY APRIL 16
AgForestry Leadership Class
41 Graduation: 5 p.m. Red Lion
Hotel, Wenatchee, Wash. Celebrate
the graduation of AgForestry Lead-
ership Class 41. This celebration was
rescheduled from its origination
April 10 date. Table sponsorships
are available. Cost: $60/adults, $20/
child. Website: http://agforestry.
org/graduation-class-41/
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Index
Markets .................................................10
Opinion ...................................................6
E.J. Harris/EO Media Group File
The former Lost Valley
Farm outside Board-
man, Ore., now Easter-
day Dairy.
CORRECTION
A cutline accompanying a
photograph published on
the front page of the Feb. 19
edition with a story about
the Easterday Dairy incorrect-
ly stated that the farm would
soon be auctioned.
The file photo has been used
many times, and the cutline
originally was published with
a story about the farm, then
known as Lost Valley Farm,
when it was to be sold in the
former owner’s bankruptcy.
The Capital Press regrets the
error.