GRANDE PRAIRIE, Alta. – The missing link that connects retailers, tourists and farmers may have been discovered in northern British Columbia.
For many new businesses, the space between making the perfect jar of saskatoon jam and the tourist buying that jam is as wide as the Prairies themselves.
“If you haven’t got a market, you haven’t got a product,” said Terri Hanen, research and development co-ordinator with the Northern Exposure Gift Company in Dawson Creek, B.C.
More than 70 percent of new businesses fail in the first year because they don’t have the marketing skills to take the product out of the kitchen, Hanen said. She was speaking Oct. 29 at Food Fest 2000 in Grande Prairie, Alta., where northern businesses showed off their value-added products.
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That’s where Hanen steps in.
The gift company, a division of the Peace Liard Community Futures project, buys the jam or earrings or slippers from the producer, which gives them the cash to make more products.
Hanen then makes the rounds to the gift stores, offering owners an eclectic selection of handcrafted products.
“Most take 20 products and only have to deal with one person,” Hanen said.
Another key to the project’s success is that the store doesn’t pay for the gifts until they’re sold, giving the owners incentive to take more local products than they would be able to afford.
“We’re the one who takes the risk,” Hanen said.
Local surveys show that tourists want to buy locally and are willing to pay good prices for quality products.
The project has been so successful at connecting the producer and consumer that it has had calls from community futures programs across Canada wanting to copy its template.
But the company is more than a salesperson peddling producers’ wares across northern British Columbia. It also works closely with the producer to suggest ways to improve labels, redesign packages or refine product to get a more professional look.
A team of five experienced art gallery curators, gift store operators and market specialists take the producer through an adjudication process, suggesting how the product can be improved.
So far 76 producers who make 116 products have been through the process. Of those, 62 products from 38 producers are in 15 stores across northern B.C.
Three soap manufacturers were encouraged to change their soap to fit a gap rather than compete with existing homemade soaps.
The gift company recently helped a local woman turn her regular potholders into man-size potholders with a masculine look. It is now helping her design an apron with spots for his cooking tools.
One of the most successful projects was encouraging a producer to change his fishing lures into earrings.
The man came to the company disheartened that he couldn’t break into the local fishing tackle business with his handcrafted lures. He was skeptical when one of the adjudicators suggested he turn the tackle into earrings. But when he brought his first earrings in for judging, the adjudicators snapped them up for themselves and friends. He now fills 500 orders at a time.
The adjudicators also helped him change the earrings’ name to something catchier: Ultimate Tackle Ð Lurings to Hook the Ultimate Man. On the back is a humorous manufacturer’s warning: This product does not support catch and release for the intended species. Anything caught will not be successfully released.
“It’s so neat to see the hope on people’s faces,” Hanen said.
“We’ve shown them it can be a career for them.”
