Pasco Specialty Kitchen helps entrepreneurs thrive

PASCO -- Lori Middleton started with a steel mixing bowl and a couple of spoons.

More than three years later, the owner of Middleton Organic Specialty Foods employs up to 10 people, and her business fills the entire basement of the Pasco Specialty Kitchen.

Middleton's business is one that Victoria Silvernail, the kitchen's executive director, points to as a success and is one of the 40 businesses using the Pasco Specialty Kitchen.

That's a record number of businesses for the kitchen, which opened in 2003 to help entrepreneurs get on their feet by providing kitchen space and education, she said.

Middleton and Rudy Pena, the owner of Rudy's Pepperblends, are among the businesses looking to move from the kitchen and into their own, independent locations.

Since starting in the kitchen, Middleton said she has added a full-time employee and up to nine part-time seasonal employees to keep up with the orders coming in from her distributor for the 13 products Middleton developed, which are sold in various states including Idaho, Arizona, North Dakota and South Dakota.

Locally, Middleton's specialty products are available through Shop the Northwest, an online Mid-Columbia farmers market, and at Yoke's Fresh Market.

Middleton and her husband, Gary Middleton, own Middleton Organic Orchards in Eltopia, growing 100 acres of certified organic apples, cherries and blueberries.

Most of the fruit is sold to packing houses, but a half acre is set aside for the organic specialty foods Middleton and her employees make.

On a monthly basis, Middleton and her employees produce between 9,216 to 11,520 jars of the Savoring the Harvest products, she said. Everything is done by hand, including packaging.

Her products include apple butter, dried fruit, apple sauces and blueberry jam. Middleton said she provides a recipe with each product.

She is working on her plan to build a barn in Pasco where she can manufacture her products, sell them and offer lessons, such as canning or baking.

Middleton said she wants to help consumers connect to the food that they are eating.

"Food brings people together," she said.

Pena also is looking at becoming independent from the kitchen. His passion for chili peppers has taken him from a hobbyist to a business owner in the past five years.

Pena said he knew he had something special after getting first place at the Pasco Fiery Foods Festival for his Tri-City blend salsa in 2008.

Pena's popular products include blends of chili peppers, which can be used for cooking, and a dry salsa blend that customers add to a can of diced tomatoes.

The peppers are meant to be used sparingly to enhance flavors, he said.

Pena started out five years ago growing 10 varieties of chili peppers in his backyard. He's crossbred them to create about 30 different chili peppers, some of which make up his Tri-City blend.

But he said he never thought he would get to this point. Last year, Pena sold $25,000 worth of salsa in the Tri-Cities and managed to break even.

Without the specialty kitchen, Pena said he couldn't afford to start his business and get to where he is now, looking to purchasing acreage and build a greenhouse and processing plant.

And Pena said he would like to expand to other chili pepper products, such as hot pepper jelly.

Some of the places Rudy's Pepperblends can be purchased include Country Mercantile, the Pasco Specialty Kitchen, URM Cash & Carry on Fruitland Street, Kennewick's Ranch & Home Store, the Pasco Albertsons and farmers markets in Pasco, Richland, Prosser and Kennewick. His products are also on Shop the Northwest.

And at Baum's House of Chocolate in West Richland, Pena sells a hot cocoa mix and hot and mild chocolate wafers.

Next, Pena said he plans to see what more he can do to create chili pepper products that will complement the area's wine industry.

This story was originally published May 23, 2011 at 12:00 AM with the headline "Pasco Specialty Kitchen helps entrepreneurs thrive."