Michigan Turkey Producers Cooperative Gobbles Up Product Center Award
2/20/08
Contact: Sara Long
517-432-1555, ext. 170
EAST LANSING, Mich. -- Ten years ago, the future of the Michigan turkey industry looked grim after the state’s major live turkey processor, Sara Lee, announced that it no longer needed Michigan birds for Thanksgiving. A group of 15 turkey farmers committed to keeping the state’s turkey industry alive came together and formed the Michigan Turkey Producers Cooperative (MTPC).
Dan Lennon, CEO and MTPC president, was a member of that group.
“Growers had no place to take their turkeys. They either had to build their own plant or go out of business,” he summed up.
Because of the group’s entrepreneurial actions and subsequent growth over the past decade, the Michigan Turkey Producers Cooperative was named the winner of the Michigan State University (MSU) Product Center Award for the Most Successful Business Transition.
The cooperative has evolved from a single product line -- selling live turkeys -- to selling a wide array of turkey-based products. Buyers include companies such as Sysco, Gordon Foods and Superior Seafoods.
Chris Peterson, director of the MSU Product Center, said it was important for the center to recognize its more inventive clients.
“It was exciting to recognize some of our more innovative and interesting clients,” he said. “Studies indicate that, particularly in rural communities, we (in Michigan) tend not to celebrate entrepreneurial successes, even though we are inclined to be fairly hard on entrepreneurial failures. When we had several clients really deserving of an award, it seemed particularly appropriate to recognize them in that way.”
Lennon said that adding value-added products to the cooperative’s lineup had been planned since the company’s inception. The original production plant was an idle french fry facility that had been out of business for 2 years. After purchasing the building in June 1999, the MTPC converted the brownfield site into a state-of-the-art live processing and raw meat plant that began operating in March 2000. By late 2001, the company had started producing its flavored raw boneless roasts, sausage and burgers.
“We knew from the beginning that we did not want to be a 100 percent commodity processing plant,” Lennon said.
The next step for the cooperative was to construct a new cooking facility. Built in 2005, the new plant creates ready-to-eat turkey products that are sold to a wide variety of food service and retail customers throughout the United States.
Lennon accepted the MSU Product Center award late in 2007 during the “Grow Your Business” conference held at the MSU Kellogg Hotel and Conference Center in East Lansing.
“I feel like I’m only one person here out of many who contributed to the cooperative’s success,” Lennon said. “We owe so much to the growers and so much to the hardworking employees we’ve got here. Without that group, we couldn’t have achieved our goals. It certainly wasn’t just me that should be recognized, it’s the entire company.”
The MTPC was one of four recipients of the first batch of MSU Product Center awards. Awards were also presented to BaBa’s HomeCooked Foods and the Dancing Goat Creamery for “Best Barrier Busters” and to Heartland Ingredients, L.L.C. for the “Best Innovative Business Idea.”
Product uniqueness was a key factor in determining the awards, said MSU Product Center associate director Tom Kalchik, especially for value-added products, those that growers somehow altered from their original form.
“For us, the key to value-added is differentiation,” Kalchik said. “How do you differentiate your product from everything else that’s available out there on the market?”
MSU Product Center associate director Dianne Novak said that the awards effectively showcased the diversity of the center’s clients.
“We wanted to create awards that would truly reflect the unique accomplishments of our customers,” she said.
Though Novak was part of the committee that chose the categories, a team of external parties not affiliated with the MSU Product Center selected the winners.
The MSU Product Center and MSU Extension were influential in the company’s success, Lennon said.
“We’ve received a lot of help since way back at the beginning, and we value that relationship,” Lennon said. “I was very pleased to see it continue to be recognized, the progress we’ve made together.”
The MSU Product Center is a major recipient of Project GREEEN (Generating Research and Extension to meet Economic and Environmental Needs) funding. The center receives $250,000 in annual operating funds from the state’s plant agriculture initiative, along with additional value-added project monies that support a variety of projects ranging from labeling and taste testing to Web site design.
“On a lot of different levels, Project GREEEN is an important source of funding for us,” Peterson said.
Founded in 1997, Project GREEEN is a cooperative effort between plant-based commodities and businesses together with the Michigan Agricultural Experiment Station, MSU Extension and the Michigan Department of Agriculture to advance Michigan’s economy through its plant-based agriculture.
To learn more about Michigan’s plant agriculture initiative at MSU, visit www.greeen.msu.edu
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