Food business incubator opens in Meredith

By ADAM DRAPCHO, LACONIA DAILY SUN

MEREDITH — It's interesting how a single decision in one's life can lead to a series of unforeseen circumstances. That's how Gavin and Mary Macdonald went from dabbling in the competitive barbecue circuit to opening Genuine Local, a food business incubator in Meredith.

The Macdonalds will host an open house on Saturday from 2 to 5 p.m. Genuine Local is located at 5 Winona Road, Building 2.

In 2008, Gavin was a police officer in Sanbornton and Mary was working in the environmental compliance field, who started entering barbecue competitions on the weekends. A year later, they started MacDaddy's Rolling Smoke BBQ, a catering company. They started bottling and selling sauces, under the labels Swineheart and Old's Cool, in 2011, and two years ago they quit their day jobs and went full time with their food enterprises. But, last year, they ran into a major problem.

Because they were making their sauces on a relatively small scale, the Macdonalds were producing them at a facility in Keene that operated as a commercial kitchen for rent. When it abruptly closed last year, they were left without a place to make their sauces. That hardship gave birth to Genuine Local, which opened on Jan. 25

Like the kitchen in Keene, Genuine Local has a commercial kitchen with two 40-gallon kettles, two convection ovens, an industrial-sized mixer and a stovetop range, which can be rented by the hour. In addition, the Macdonalds offer a menu of services to help start or grow small food businesses. Those services include everything from sourcing ingredients and scaling recipes to bottling and marketing the product. A killer recipe is a great start, but, as they have learned through their own business, successful products also have developers who know how to limit input costs such as ingredients and packaging.

"That translates into having a better retail price and making them competitive in the market," he said.

While Genuine Local has services to help food entrepreneurs who want to sell products in shops throughout the region, Mary said she also sees the facility as useful to local farms who want to preserve a bumper crop so that it can be sold year-round.

"It expands their potential market," she said.

Genuine Local already has several clients, and has the capacity for many more.

"And we're getting calls every day," said Gavin.

To learn more, visit genuinelocal.org or call 279-8600.