Goat creamery wins $50K business plan competition, readies to expand production

The winner of this year’s $50,000  Momentum Business Plan Competition is Kandy Potter, founder of KandyLand Dairy, the first and only Grade A-licensed goat creamery in Michigan.

Potter beat out four other contestants who also pitched their ideas to a panel of judges and live audience at West Shore Community College’s two weeks ago.

Potter is a fourth-generation Michigan farmer who got three rescue goats in 2008 and started making cheese and yogurt for family and friends. This quickly expanded, and she is managing a herd of 100 goats today.

With the $50,000 Momentum grant, Potter is ready to rock. The funds will allow her to expand and build an on-site creamery at her farm and allow her to produce cheese and yogurt locally and at increased capacity, as well as add bottled milk to the product lineup through the addition of a pasteurizer, milk chiller and bottling line. The creamery also will contain walk-in coolers, an aging room for more elaborate cheeses, and a small retail store. Part of the facility will include an observation area for visitors to see everything happen, from pasteurizing to cheese making and milk bottling. Once the creamery is complete, it will be the only goat farm in Michigan selling bottled milk and drinkable yogurt.

Potter began processing her cheese and yogurt at The Starting Block, a non-profit kitchen incubator in Hart. “The Starting Block was great, and I was able to get my license,” she says. “Sales were phenomenal from the start, and I outgrew The Starting Block. Business has exploded all over the state.”  Potter now sells at farmers markets in Ludington, Manistee, Frankfort, and Muskegon; grocers such as Hansen Foods in Hart, Port City Organics in Manistee and Biercamp in Ludington; and restaurants such as Shay's M22 in Onekama, Iron Works Cafe in Manistee and Big Hart Brewing Company in Hart.

KandyLand Dairy follows such other Momentum participants as Stuart Family Organics,  Love Wines and Starving Artist Brewery (the 2015 Momentum winner), making the Ludington area an emerging hot spot for artisan and handcrafted foods and beverages.

Launched in 2015, the Momentum Business Plan Competition awards one business entrepreneur a prize of $50,000 to start or move an early-stage business to West Michigan’s Mason County. Funded by Pennies from Heaven Foundation and administered by the Ludington & Scottville Area Chamber of Commerce, the competition is open to eligible independent for-profit or non-profit ventures with a viable business idea, plan or invention, or existing organizations or companies with less than $100,000 in sales or revenue annually.

To learn more about KandyLand Dairy, you can view their site her or their Facebook page here. For more information about the Momentum Business Plan Competition, you can visit its website here.

Writer: John Rumery, Innovation and Jobs News Editor