Eugene weekly., June 16, 2016, Page 40, Image 40

SAUCES
&
SPICES
Yep, there’s a vanilla producer in Eugene, and
it has the cutest name ever: Singing Dog Vanilla.
The company says it works with farming families
in Papua New Guinea and Indonesia, giving them a
share of profits in exchange for sustainable growing
practices. Singing Dog Vanilla sells its vanilla in
traditional extract form, as well as vanilla beans,
vanilla salt, vanilla coffee and lip-quenching vanilla
lip balm. Get your vanilla fix at singingdogvanilla.
com.
Marty Parisien and Bill Wiedmann founded
Red Ape Cinnamon in 2013 with the goal
of distributing everyone’s favorite holiday-
reminiscent spice. Red Ape’s cinnamon is organic
and grown in Sumatra. As you might have guessed,
“Red Ape” is a reference to orangutans, natives of
Indonesia. Red Ape says it donates 5 percent of its
profits to “organizations that protect orangutans and
their habitat.” The company has also “adopted” a
handful of great apes through Orangutan Outreach,
a nonprofit dedicated to saving the primates. Head
over to redapecinnamon.com to learn more.
Milk &
hOnEy
A fixture in Eugene since the 1970s, GloryBee
overflows with honey and a love for bees. From its
factory store on the outskirts of Eugene, GloryBee
makes all of its products, including wax candles,
cooking and baking supplies, a vast assortment of
honeys and other sweeteners, and a comprehensive
collection of beekeeping gear, helping out people
interested in starting their own hive. GloryBee also
gives back to the buzzy pollinators it depends on —
through its “Save the Bee” initiative, GloryBee says
it has raised $65,658 for the Oregon State Honey
Bee Lab to help fund bee research. For more, visit
glorybee.com.
Nancy’s Springfield Creamery, owned and
operated by the Kesey family, got its start in 1970,
and the company is still going strong. Nancy’s
yogurts, cottage cheese and sour creams are
ubiquitous in Lane County, as is their cute, colorful
packaging. Nancy’s says most of its milk comes
from farms within a 50-mile radius of Eugene —
so you can thank local cows for all that creamy
goodness. Head over to nancysyogurt.com for
more.
Packing
for the
Future
SWEET CREEK
FOODS OPERATES IN
ELMIRA, OREGON
Sweet Creek Foods fills a niche in Lane County’s local food system
By William Kennedy
T
raditional capitalism teaches bigger is
always better. Not so with Lane County-
based Sweet Creek Foods.
“It isn’t sustainable to grow too large,”
Sweet Creek owner and founder Paul
Fuller tells EW. “You lose the flavor if you’re trucking
everywhere.”
Located near Elmira, family-owned Sweet Creek
Foods works with Eugene-area farms and food producers,
co-packing and preserving food for consumers from
Bellingham to San Francisco. “We believe in a static
growth,” Fuller says. “To go national takes fighting the big
boys. We like the idea of being a regional player.”
Fuller got his start in the refrigeration business, helping
launch many well-known local food establishments.
Fuller’s wife Judy designs Sweet Creek labels and helps
with the bookkeeping. The couple’s sons have become
involved in the family business as well. “We wanted to
create a business to retire on,” Fuller recalls, “and then we
hoped to be able to maintain that size.”
He explains, “We have about 30 different products,”
including tuna, pickles, marinara sauce, enchilada sauce
and jam, all sold in glass jars. The enchilada sauce is
loaded with flavor, tastefully spicy and complementary to
other enchilada ingredients.
“Sweet Creek packs product for small companies and
farms for farm stands and farmers markets,” Fuller says,
but also for local grocers like The Kiva, Sundance, Red
Barn and many more.
“We’ve worked with a lot of the food businesses in
town,” Fuller says. “We’ve worked with Gathering Together
Farms up in Philomath,” he adds, as well as Junction City’s
Groundwork Organics. “We work with the fisherman out in
Newport to get our tuna.”
“We’re trying to be the third leg in a local food system,”
Fuller says, explaining that some produce isn’t available
year-round in Oregon, and by preserving foods, Sweet
Creek is “trying to work with the bounty here and get it to
the people in a different way.”
Sweet Creek prioritizes living-wage jobs for its
employees. “Our goal is to keep the people that we have
employed here,” he says.
Fuller says this all makes Sweet Creek unique in Lane
County’s already thriving food industry — an industry he
says is vibrant enough to make Eugene a “food hub.”
“There’s a lot of natural food stores,” Fuller continues.
“There’s a lot of good organic produce available. People
are very inclined to support local products and local
production.” Nevertheless, he says the economic potential
of Eugene’s food scene remains unrealized.
“We have the beer, we have the wine,” Fuller says, noting
Lane County also has several food processing businesses
with small to relatively large-scale operations.
“We’re a hub of food, [with] a lot of ideas about how to
get local and regional food hubs going.” ■
For more information about Sweet Creek Foods and their products, go to
sweetcreekfoods.com or find them at your local natural grocer.
Aptly named, So Delicious has spent the past 25
years making dairy-free delights in Springfield. Its
ingredients include dairy alternatives like coconut
milk, almond milk and cashew milk, and So
Delicious doesn’t stop at beverages. It also makes
frozen desserts — check out “Dark Chocolate
Truffle” ice cream made with cashew milk — yogurt
alternatives and coffee creamers. The Eugene-based
company was purchased by WhiteWave in 2014.
Find more at sodeliciousdairyfree.com.
8
CHOW SUMMER 2016
EUGENEWEEKLY.COM/CHOW