BAY TREE, Alta. – A children’s entrepreneurship program was the inspiration behind Heather Porrill’s successful on-farm food and catering business.
As part of a youth program in Dawson Creek, B.C., two of Porrill’s five children started a summer business creating and selling pancake and biscuit mixes. But it was Porrill, searching for a business a few years later, who recognized the potential for quick fix mixes and relaunched the company.
She added mixes for chocolate cake, icing cookies, welsh cake and a variety of vegan foods and then she hit the farmers’ market circuit. For two years, Porrill tested and perfected her Star Bright Farm mixes at farmers’ markets, stores and other craft events.
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“Farmers’ markets are the best way to connect with customers, but I don’t want to be there every Saturday morning for the rest of my life. What I want is to take it beyond the farmers’ market,” said Porrill from her on-farm kitchen facility.
Last year, Porrill bought an oilfield skid shack, scrubbed off the dirt, used more than 21 tubes of caulking to make it mouse proof, gave the inside a bright green coat of paint and turned it into a commercial kitchen.
Her five children know when she’s in her outside kitchen she’s at work. They can knock on the door, but they’re not often invited inside.
Before Christmas, Porrill added packages of bite-sized caramels to her table of offerings at the farmers’ markets as a little nibbly customers could eat while wandering around the market.
Instantly she knew she had a hit. Everyone who tasted the smooth, buttery caramels bought a package of Buttery Bites.
“It’s just taken off. I’m literally going full out,” said Porrill.
“Even my husband has become addicted to caramels.”
The mixes have now taken a back seat to the caramels. During the recent Grow West farm direct marketing conference in Calgary, Porrill learned about the need to focus in her business.
Caramels are now her focus.
Her goal is to have Buttery Bites caramels at the 2010 Olympics in Vancouver.
“Maybe they’re looking for a little family-farm opportunity.”
Before then, Porrill must perfect her recipe, packaging and marketing. Each caramel bite is hand wrapped in a wax paper, which takes as much time as mixing a batch of caramels. A candy wrapping machine cost about $30,000. For now, Porrill believes she has no choice but to spend the time hand wrapping hundreds of Buttery Bites.
By starting small and tweaking along the way, Porrill said she gains confidence that her product is what she wants.
“I admire people who can take a huge plunge. I have to do it step by step. I want to be reassured along the way. Once I feel confident I can keep pushing forward,” said Porrill, putting the last twist on a Buttery Bites wrapper.
“When I’m bulging at the seams here, I’ll know it’s time to grow.”
Not content to wait until her Buttery Bites take off, Porrill is also building her catering business. She recently bought a small trailer to pull behind her vehicle to take her pots, pans, spoons, tea towels, coffee pots and special chafing dishes to her catering jobs.
“I love going and feeding a raft of people. I want a restaurant so bad. Maybe it’s a mother nurturing thing.”
For her catering, Porrill searches out Peace country raised chicken, pork, beef or bison to serve with the meal and promotes all her products with the Peace country logo of an aspen leaf.
“I’m very big on the Peace country logo. People want products they are able to take home. That logo identifies me as local.”
If the catering is successful, the next step may be a mobile kitchen to follow the auction circuit.
“It gets me a restaurant on wheels.”
After returning from Grow West, Porrill said the ideas for possible projects flowed from her head like lava. She told her husband she wanted a five-acre patch of garden carved from the edge of their hay field. She’s not sure what she’ll plant yet, possibly pumpkins.
“Kids need to be able to go to a field and pick a pumpkin.”
The five-acre plot will be the beginning of something related to agritourism.
She wants to have a “name the baby llama” contest this spring, a big garden to grow unusual vegetables that would make a chef drool and to be part of a cluster development program to host on-farm visitors.
“We’re looking forward to spring. I wish I had more time, more land, more staff.”
