Several Northwest brands will establish a processing facility in Montana to develop organic, gluten-free grain products with a $3 million USDA Organic Market Development grant.

ZEGO Foods and Snacktivist Foods will use the funding to expand and improve the organic, gluten-free, high-protein grain supply chain.

“It really makes sense for the government to be, not running these facilities, but funding them so that they get up and going,” ZEGO Foods founder and CEO Colleen Kavanagh told the Capital Press. “If we didn’t have this infrastructure money, there’’d be no way — there’d be too much debt, we wouldn’t be able to do what we want to do.”

The money will be used to open new sales channels, develop three to five new organic specialty grain products and provide co-packing for “values-aligned” brands.

The grant will help the organic supply chain better serve more than 85 million people in the U.S. with medically tailored diets due to allergies, gluten intolerance or diabetes, and consumers seeking to reduce chemical exposure, according to the company.

They will promote oats and proso millet processed at the Montana Gluten Free facility in Belgrade, Mont. The facility is slated to be operational with updated equipment in about six months.

Anchor brands

ZEGO Foods makes “superfood-based” products that meet as many dietary restrictions as possible. It is based in San Francisco.

Snacktivist Foods develops vegan, gluten-free, non-GMO, whole grain baking mixes and baked foods, with an emphasis on regenerative agriculture. It is based in Coeur d’ Alene, Idaho.

The companies will be anchor brands in the Collaborative Integrated Value Chains (CIVC) co-op, working with small farmers and companies to process crops and sell them into retail and food service markets.

Working with farmers

The co-op hopes to work with 10 to 20 farmers in Montana, Idaho, Oregon and Washington.

“I know all too well how many farmers have speciality crops sitting in a bin or trailer because they needed to grow a rotational crop,” said Joni Kindwall-Moore, Snacktivist founder.

Kindwall-Moore is developing a database of growers looking for market channels for their specialty crops, as well as a database for value-added processing, including on-farm storage and cleaning.

Current production is about 1 million pounds. The goal is to reach an optimal size, about 12 million pounds, and then replicate the project in other areas.

The co-op will operate on a limited, redistributive profit model, Kavanagh said. “We’re all working together to be as efficient as we can, so we can get money to the farmers and keep the price down for the consumer.”

Millet dehullingThe project will add millet dehulling, which is not available in the region, Kavanagh said.

Currently, farmers must get their millet dehulled in Colorado.

Several farmers have organic millet sitting on their farm, but can’t sell it as a value-added product, Kavanagh said.

“We have all these people who have specialty diets … it’s right here on the farm, and we can’t get it to them,” she said.

“A new farmer texted me yesterday and said, ‘I have 200,000 pounds of proso millet, would you like it?’” Kindwall-Moore said. “I regretfully can’t help him because I don’t have a way to process that into human-grade consumable product.”

{strong style=”font-size: 1.17em;”}Helping smaller brands{/strong}The co-op model opens a supply chain so smaller brands can purchase U.S.-grown organic oats, Kavanagh said.

Currently, most U.S.-grown organic oats are purchased by just a few large companies, so small brands end up sourcing from Canada or overseas, she said. They need 25-pound bags or single pallets, but larger mills have minimum orders of a half truckload or more.

“We will be working with Bay State Milling to supply those smaller brands at the quantities that work for their volume,” Kavanagh said.

The co-op will provide organic allergy-free or gluten-free copacking for small brands, which is extremely difficult to find for smaller brands, she added.

“These issues around developing supply chains for rotation crops to small brands is key because they can really help farmers move their regenerative and organic crops as they expand their acreage,” she said.

For more information, contact Kavanagh at colleen@zegofoods.com and Kindwall-Moore at joni@snacktivist.com.

https://zegofoods.com/

https://snacktivistfoods.com/