With growing team, new space, Genuine Local perfects its recipe

LACONIA — When Gavin and Mary Macdonald decided to start making and selling their own barbecue sauce, they thought to themselves, “How hard can it be?”

“It turns out,” Mary said during an interview, “it can be really hard.”

After losing the production facility they used to make that sauce, the Macdonalds opened their own facility in Meredith in 2016. With the level of demand from fellow budding producers, they quickly outgrew that kitchen. With a move to downtown Laconia in 2021 and the addition of their daughter Clarissa as a co-owner in 2018, Genuine Local now has more than 60 regular customers and received recognition from the Small Business Administration this year as a champion.

Genuine Local’s mission is to lower the barriers to entry for independent food and beverage producers: in addition to providing access to kitchen space, equipment, labeling, packaging and production assistance, Genuine Local helps their clients navigate state and federal regulations, get educated about the industry and develop their business.

“Providing the access to the information and the resources and the equipment people need in order to launch or grow their food business, and provide a space that's curated and has training and support so that they can grow their business and achieve whatever they define as success,” Mary said. “That's what Genuine Local is about.”

The Macdonald household was always a food-centric place, and in 2006 they launched a competitive barbecue team. Success for Macdaddy’s Rolling Smoke BBQ propelled them into the catering market, where customer interest in their sauce drew them toward making and selling it on the side. By 2013, they had left their day jobs to pursue their culinary projects full time.

Then, in 2015, the Keene production facility they had used to make and package their sauce closed. With dozens of different sauces and related products in their repertoire, the Macdonalds had been considering starting their own kitchen for some time, and by January 2016, Genuine Local was open for business.

While they needed the facility to make their own product, Genuine Local had a broader mission from the start. Their own products slowly took a backseat, as the Macdonalds dove into Genuine Local’s mission.

“In growing the catering business and our sauce business, we received a lot of help from a lot of people who had already been through some aspect of what we were facing,” Mary said. Genuine Local became a vessel to pay that forward, large-scale. 

After quickly outgrowing their Meredith facility, Genuine Local made the move to Messer Street in 2021. The building, which also faces Church Street along the Winnipesaukee River, increased their production and warehouse space fivefold. Now, they have more than 60 customers, including local makers who rent the facility to make and produce their products, those who have Genuine Local staff make their products, and value-added customers, like farmers who bring in surplus crops to be transformed into shelf-stable goods that can have a wider reach. Genuine Local’s facility is also used by catering companies and food trucks for both preparation and cleanup.

Their larger capacity both supported and demanded team growth. They took on full-time staff in their facility and, as the pandemic brought more and more people into independent food hobbies and businesses, Genuine Local became busier than ever.

The Macdonalds' daughter, Clarissa, joined them as a co-owner in 2018 and became a key member of their leadership team.

Clarissa remembers being on “label duty” as a middle schooler for her parents back at the Keene facility. Watching the company flourish fuels her passion for supporting other local startups.

“Seeing all the barriers that you guys had to overcome, starting your business,” she said, gesturing toward Mary and Gavin, “I came to realize that when you’re self-employed, there's no one there to set the groundwork that's in front of you. You're the one who's laying the roadmap, essentially, to decide where you're going.”

As director of opportunities, Clarissa leads customer relations and customer intake, as well as overseeing the facility's half-dozen, full-time staff.

“There's nothing I love more than seeing a customer who has this really great idea that they're passionate about and walking them through each step up until they get their very first bottle.”

“We think of ourselves as a bridge business,” Gavin emphasized. For those who want it, Genuine Local is designed to get smaller operations off the ground and ready for a larger, industrial facility. 

A major component of what they offer, naturally, is education. Navigating the practical and regulatory straits of the food and beverage production industry, Gavin and Mary emphasized, can be fraught.

Labels are highly standardized, and product preparation is strictly regulated. Gavin and Mary help customers to master it, because mistakes can be costly — and not only economically.

“Food safety is a real thing,” Mary emphasized. “If you make something inappropriately or improperly, you can kill someone.”

Many of their customers starting out — encompassing folks who come in with nothing but an idea, semi-established side-hustles hoping to expand their market, and everyone in between — often start out renting the kitchen and move into having Genuine Local make their product for them so they can maximize face time with customers.

Genuine Local’s community mindset has earned them recognition: the Small Business Administration named them Small Business Champion during its NH Small Business Week this year. Their shelf also includes “Just One Thing” Sustainability Slam sponsored by NH Businesses for Social Responsibility, which they won in 2018 and 2019.