Foodie success backwards… but it created opportunity

Episode 2 - Background leading up to my foodie career and The MONETIZATION CHEF

Dear Reader!

In Episode 1, you found me hanging in career, financial, and family limbo; with a fresh but now useless BS degree, no job prospects, and a new, pregnant wife.

Today, I share the rest of my pre-foodie career foibles, and how a chance gamble on the Lewis Clark Bicentennial Commemoration, finally (but indirectly) opened the path to FoodCrafting success! (Excuse the AI graphic… sigh.)

As Pam (my first wife) and I discussed next steps in our new, untimely reality, we decided to bet on our future, the hard way. And I do not recommend this path for most.

I did spend 6 months logging, while she stayed home until our firstborn arrived, a girl. (Andrea - now a well-paid copywriter, mostly in health niches, working out of Boise, Idaho.)

Then, Pam and I both went back to college.

What?

Pam was less than two years from her own degree. I applied for graduate school and started an MBA (Masters of Business Administration) program. We both got jobs, rented a cheap, tiny-one bedroom in Moscow, and scheduled classes around back-and-forth, mom-and-pop childcare. An austere life of long days and very short nights.

By the time we finished our degrees, we were exhausted, degree-d, and had another child on the way.

(I shake my head for the unfortunate couples who spend months and years trying to get pregnant. Over the span of my first marriage, three times we risked it without birth control: three healthy girls. Gotta be a record. Sigh.)

Pam, with her new BS degree in Rangeland Management, got an administrative job with the US Forest Service.

I, on the other hand, began another evolving, and never-ending roller coaster of endeavors.

I will make this brief (please don’t laugh), but work stops included:

·         Forestry services contracting business

·         Public relations position with a Soil & Water Conservation District

·         Management trainee with U-Haul (I am not kidding!)

·         Weekly newspaper editor (at least I won some awards!)

Eventually, the life Pam and I put together finally fell apart.

Financial stress, trying to do too much, and really, we were never that compatible.

We got three very nice daughters out of the deal, who never got in trouble, and are successful and productive in their respective professions. (But two marriages and two divorces. Could be better. Did I mention a grandson, Jeremiah, and a granddaughter, Amelia? Maybe not so bad.)

I spent ten years single. Good years, mostly.

But my career windmill continued, many of these at the same time, but not necessarily in this order.

·         Financial planner (yuck)

·          Freelance business writer

·         Taught business classes at two colleges, and one university

·         Published a real estate advertising publication (two, actually) in 1986 - One still in business:

·         Published a business journal

·         Taught western dance lessons (2-step, 10-step, western swing, cowboy waltz - even line dancing and the Macarena…)

·         Started and operated a country-western/rock-n-roll mobile DJ & karaoke business (Mal’s Boot Scootin’ Mobile Entertainment)

·         Executive director for a chamber of commerce

·         Marketing director for a passenger ferry service at Lake Chelan, WA.

Do I sound like I was lost? Had a lot of fun, saw a mountain-load of beautiful country, but… something was still missing.

Then I met Sandy, coming off a divorce. Our youngest daughters, best friends in the fifth grade, introduced us, playing a bit as matchmakers.

If you are familiar with MBTI, the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator, Sandy was the 100% opposite of my first wife, and … well, things clicked. After a few months dating and helping me teach dance lessons, we got married.

Beyond a short career working with the developmentally disabled (a segue to many jokes about ending up with me), Sandy got a job as retail manager of a wood-crafting store. Then the book department manager at another retailer.

I was still teaching business classes, but ended my mobile DJ business, which was meant for the single life (stories NOT for another day).

Then, one afternoon, circa 2000, I got an inspiration that indirectly led me to foodie nirvana.

Our country was in anticipation of the Lewis & Clark Bicentennial (the explorers came right down the Clearwater River at Orofino, Idaho, near where we lived.)

I thought it would be fun to do another little publication, “Lewis-Clark Trivia”, modeled after those “Tidbits” free readers you often see in some restaurants and other locations.

Editorial content came from the explorers’ journals. I sold ads to cover printing costs and make some profit. Distribution went to over 100 business locations along US Highway 12, from the mouth of the Selway and Lochsa Rivers near Kooskia, Idaho, over to Dayton, Washington. (Gas was cheaper then.)

About this time, Sandy suffered the annoyance of a new store manager/supervisor (punk…) whom she did not resonate with, and asked me to insert her into my business.

The rest is history.

She took over the ad sales and delivery route. In the process, she found retailers asking her where to find Lewis and Clark related souvenirs to sell to tourists, with the big event kicking off just a couple years away.

We saw an opportunity. So being the business system designer I am, I researched the repping business, and discovered how to approach producers and sell their goodies to retailers. (Not a lot of resources back in those days, pre-internet, and only one or two out-of-print books on the topic.)

Lewis Clark Gifts & Souvenirs, a manufacturers’ representative (sales rep) agency, was born.

With some internet research, we located our first “producer” and signed a contract for a line of Sacajawea and Lewis-Clark chocolate bars from Mandan, North Dakota. (Hmmm, a food item… a sign of things to come?)

And, our first sale was to a chocolate shop at the Palouse Mall, in Moscow, Idaho (same mall we will soon get back to with the barbecue sauce story from my previous Cottage Foodology newsletter…)

We added many other themed items: t-shirts, books, postcards, calendars, souvenirs, ceramics, tapestries. Soon Sandy had quarterly routes covering the entire state of Idaho and small parts of Montana, Washington, and Oregon.

Unfortunately, the Lewis-Clark thing was more sizzle and pop, than an explosion. No big rush of tourists. The hubbub was mostly a way for communities (many not even on the LC Trail) to get grants and government dollars to put up statues and finance commemorative events.

I feared the end of another enterprise.

But in the meantime, during her travels, Sandy found more gourmet food lines to rep. And specialty foods now outsold any of the Lewis & Clark souvenirs or apparel in our sales catalog.

We pivoted.

Idaho Gifts Wholesale launched (actually more of a rebranding from LC Gifts & Souvenirs), specializing in the sales of “made in Idaho” lines, focusing on gourmet foods. Lots of huckleberry stuff (the state fruit), chocolate goodies, sauces, mustards, nutrition bars – anything with vibrant packaging designed for the gift market.

Sandy’s business soared. On her best day, a gift basket company in Boise purchased over $7,000 ($12,000 in today’s dollars) – with an average 15% commission.

We were hooked. Specialty foods were our future!

And just when serendipity could not get any better, an announcement came out about an interesting purchase made by the University of Idaho, which would change our lives, forever.

It was early 2002.

In my next Cottage Foodology newsletter, our story takes us through two decades of food-based business expansion, where I developed a massive range of expertise.

But along the way, we suffered through very tough times, brought on by a personal health tragedy, forcing us into two more pivots.

Join me in Episode 3?

Mal Dell
The MONETIZATION CHEF
”Cooking Up Profits for Foodies!”