When it comes to artisanal food-making, small is now huge in the Chicago area.
Piggybacking on the locavore trend and the do-it-yourself movement — and motivated in part by the recession — hundreds of entrepreneurial, small-scale food production operations have launched in the past few years.
Many are providing fresh takes on traditional categories of small-scale food-making, like breads and candies. But many also are carving out very narrow niches, concentrating on specialized foods like bar bitters or snow cone syrups.
Regardless of the category, the boom in local, artisanal food production is undeniable. Lisa Santos recalls that when she opened her Southport Grocery & Cafe eight years ago, she could “count on one hand” the number of locally made food products she carried. Today she estimates they represent a third or more of her shelf space.
For Cleetus Friedman, who expanded his locavore-focused catering operation last fall to include a deli-style cafe and grocery, City Provisions, in the Ravenswood neighborhood, the local focus is even more pronounced. He estimates that 95 percent of the 200 food and beverage products he sells are produced within a 200-mile radius, most from the Chicago area.
“I hadn’t planned to open the deli until 2013, but the way the local food movement was going I decided the support was there,” he says.
For some new entrants into the local food-making business, the move was the next logical step in a culinary career. After graduating from Kendall College’s Culinary Arts program in 2000, Ginna Haravon worked in several local restaurants and taught at local cooking schools for nearly a decade. Then, a bacon-bourbon-caramel corn concoction she brought to a Super Bowl party a few years ago proved to be a huge hit with friends. By November 2009 she’d launched Salted Caramel.
Today she has a line of more than a dozen “sweet meets savory” products, including stout marshmallows and pretzel graham crackers. Her new line of frozen treats includes chocolate mole pudding pops, watermelon-coriander ice and lemon-raspberry goat cheese cups.
Like other new entrants, she sells her wares at local gourmet food emporiums, farmers markets and on the web. A growing number of pop-up markets — one-day events that set up, sell local products and disappear — are providing another outlet.
Nicole Greene also launched a new food business —Truffle Truffle — in 2009 and is making her mark with distinctive flavors of chocolate truffles, including blackberry-thyme, chile, wasabi, beer and pretzel, apple pie, and peanut butter and jelly. She took a more circuitous route to food making than Haravon. After quitting her high-stress job with a Washington, D.C., defense contractor, she enrolled in pastry school, planning on a career making wedding cakes.
“Unfortunately my cakes were terrible, but I fell in love with making chocolate,” she says. While managing a bakery in Philadelphia, she made an assortment of chocolates as holiday gifts for friends, and that led to Truffle Truffle.
She sells her candies online and through retail and pop-up markets, but Greene made a conscious decision this year to de-emphasize her wholesale business and focus her marketing on customized corporate gifts and special events. “One reason I wanted to make wedding cakes was because I love celebrating with people, and this is another way to be part of those celebrations.”
While distinctive products and savvy marketing seem key to the success of all these locavore businesses, many are focusing on the use of locally sourced ingredients and other sustainable business practices in their efforts. The exotic flavor pairings Elizabeth Madden whips up in the Oak Park kitchen of her Rare Bird Preserves — like peach lavender and apricot almond — have tripled in sales this year compared with 2010. Equally important to her customers, and to her, though, is the fact that all of her fresh fruits come from local farmers markets.
Similarly, Jessica Volpe gets all the produce for her Pasta Puttana products from the vendors who come twice a week to Green City Market in Lincoln Park, and she speaks with zeal about the importance of “supporting the circle” of local food producers. Sandra Holl’s Floriole Bakery products also incorporate locally sourced ingredients, with most coming from Green City vendors. She estimates that her business has quadrupled in the five years she has been baking, as she expanded from three products to 20.
Holl and Volpe also recently opened their own shops, achieving a goal many such entrepreneurs seek. Floriole opened in Lincoln Park in spring 2010, and Pasta Puttana opened in West Town this summer.
Those without their own retail spaces face one of the tougher challenges for nascent food operations: where to bake the bread, stew the preserves, pop the corn or freeze the fruit pops. Melissa Yen, who launched her Jo Snow Syrups last year, did what many do. She subleased a part of another small food maker’s commercial kitchen space to bottle the lines of coffee syrups, Italian sodas, snow cone syrups and other specialty items she sells online, through retailers and at a snow cone cart she sets up at farmers markets.
Although many of these local food producers are in direct or indirect competition for consumer food dollars, they collaborate more than compete. “This is an incredibly supportive community,” says Rare Bird’s Madden, who received advice from other food producers about licensing, regulatory hurdles and other aspects of a food business start-up when she launched in 2007.
The goals of local food-makers vary widely. Many want to open their own retail shops, but Jo Snow’s Yen says she just wants enough revenue to avoid working a second job. Another variable is size. Many want to remain small to ensure control over quality, while others are thinking big.
“I want to be a national candy brand, but I hope to remain artisanal in the process,” says Chris Kadow-Dougherty, who opened Whimsical Candy in 2008 and now sells through retailers in 12 states.
Several factors are behind this artisanal food explosion, experts say, but the horrible economic climate is a big one.
“Entrepreneurship always spikes in recessionary times,” says Zina Murray, who points to 15 licensed food businesses now operating out of her Logan Square Kitchen, a shared commercial kitchen and event space she opened two years ago. In addition to providing work space, she reaches customers through occasional pop-up markets and other events.
Emily Fiffer, a co-founder of Dose — a monthly pop-up food and fashion market held at the River East Art Center — adds that the proliferation of culinary school graduates, more interest in health and fitness, and the rising consumer curiosity about the source of the food they eat are also fueling the growth. Dose co-founder April Francis believes the Internet is also a contributing factor.
“Food-makers and consumers are finding shared communities” online, she says, whether it is a food-maker looking for local sources of ingredients or consumers seeking artisanal food-makers committed to standards of sustainability.
Regardless of the reasons and despite the long hours, economic risk and other challenges associated with any start-up, those who’ve taken the plunge are glad they did.
“To me, there is nothing I enjoy more than going to a party, being asked what I do for a living and saying I’m a candy-maker,” says Kadow-Dougherty.
The purveyors
Here are some local makers of artisanal foods worth a taste test. It is by no means an exhaustive list. Look for the products at smaller independent or gourmet grocers, cafes and food shops.
We list websites when available; most sites give information on where to find their products. A few purveyors have shops themselves, and we list those addresses.
Finally, we list a few shops that carry a number of these locally made products. Several makers also sell at area farmers markets.
Cheap Tart, cheaptart.com, 773-344-1998
CoOp Hot Sauce, coopsauce.com, 773-216-5580
Defloured Gluten-Free Bakery, deflouredbakery.com; 773-234-5733
Flora Confections & Pastries, floraconfections.com
Janice’s Kitchen, macaroons, janiceskitchenchicago.com
Mama’s Nuts! Artisan nut brittles from Xmarx roving dinner club.
Look for them at the next Dose Market. xmarxchicago.com
Nice Cream Ice Cream, nicecreamchicago.com, 312-479-7990
Pasta Puttana, 1407 W. Grand Ave., pastaputtana.com, 773-439-9623
Rich Chocolates and Candies, richchocolates.com, 312-316-8683
Salted Caramel, saltedcaramel.net
Snookelfritz Ice Cream, snookelfritz.com
Where to shop
Dose Market, monthly pop-up food and fashion market, River East Arts Center, 435 E. Illinois St., the next market is 10 a.m.-4 p.m., Sept. 25;
dosemarket.com
City Provisions, 1818 W. Wilson Ave., 773-293-2489
Marion Street Market, 100 S. Marion St., Oak Park, 708-725-7200
Pastoral, 2945 N. Broadway, 53 E. Lake St. and Chicago French Market at 131 N. Clinton St.
Southport Grocery & Cafe, 3552 N. Southport Ave., 773-685-0100. Sells several of its own products as well.
Village Gourmet Cafe & Catering, 23 S. Prospect Ave., Clarendon Hills, 630-323-6885
