Salsa sisters dipped into the post-tobacco economy
By: Feoshia Henderson
The Kentucky Post
2/18/2005
GERMANTOWN, KY.-- Salsa was comfort food for Belinda Fay and Carla McDowell after their
mother died in 2002.
"We would chop and chop and cry. Chop some more and cry,' McDowell said from the sisters' newly
built commercial Germantown kitchen. 'It was very unexpected. So it was a good way for us to get
through the summer.'
The women had learned canning from their mother, Doris McCormick. And for several years, friends
and family had raved about their homemade salsa. Still, it wasn't until that summer, faced with an
overrun of the condiment, that the pair considered selling the fresh-from-the-garden mix.
'It kind of fell out of the sky into our laps,' Fay said of the idea.
The next year the pair started making salsa for sale from McDowell's home. It coincided with a change
in state law that lifted restrictions on farm-based food and allowed it to be sold at farmers markets,
certified roadside stands or from farms.
The sisters got a glimpse of the potential for their business right away: at their first festival in Fleming
County, they sold more than $2,000 of McDowell Farms Salsa.
'We thought, This is not a bad deal,' said McDowell's husband, David.
They soon outgrew the capacity of the small pots where they could only make 35 pints of salsa at time.
That's when Fay and McDowell hit the road from their tiny town outside Maysville and turned to
Frankfort for help.
They found it in a program that uses a chunk of the state's Phase I Tobacco Settlement money to help
the commonwealth's hard-hit tobacco farmers supplement their income. The fund was a good match for
the family farmers, whose income from the crop had been shrinking for nearly a decade.
Last April, with a $56,000 loan from the Agriculture Development Fund, Fay and McDowell paid for
half their commercial kitchen. The rest was financed through a bank loan. The 30-foot by 30-foot
kitchen, complete with a walk-in refrigerator, industrial strength oven and stainless-steel vat, allows them
to make 300 pints of the hot stuff at a time.
The boost from the state helped the business get off to a good financial start, Fay said.
'I think its great that we're not having to borrow (more) money,' she said.
In January, the state acknowledged the sisters' hard work by naming their business as one of two that
received the 2005 Innovations in Agriculture Award.
The sisters sell their one-pint jars of salsa for $5 each. The kitchen is shut down now, but during the
summer and fall they made 14,000 jars.
Carla McDowell said people like the simplicity of the salsa.
'We don't have a lot of spices. It's literally the fresh ingredients, with a little sugar, a little sauce. It's just
the fresh taste. People try it one time -- '
'And they're addicted,' Fay interjected.
The salsa comes in mild, medium, hot and very hot flavors. It's sold at festivals around the state or on
the McDowell Farms Salsa Web site at: www.mcdowellfarmssalsa.com. The site has a calendar that lists
the sisters' travel schedule.
Fay and McDowell have done most of the hard work of getting the business off the ground, including
getting state and federal certification for their kitchen, writing a business plan and completing the state
loan application.
But as they work to expand, sales and production have become a family affair. Their children,
McDowell's husband and the sisters' father, Carl McCormick, help out with making, delivering and selling
the product.
'The thing about our situation is we're lucky, we have a real close family, and if we need to call on
someone we can,' David McDowell said before pulling out a large picture of 16-member family at the
kitchen's June 2004 ribbon cutting. The picture sits just outside the kitchen.
One day those relatives might become employees. The women now are working to boost profits by
getting McDowell Farms Salsa into grocery store chains, Carla McDowell said.
'People know us in this area. So we have to go south to Lexington and north to Cincinnati,' she said.Late
last month, Lexington-based Slone's Signature Markets put the salsa on its shelves. The sisters also hope
to get into Wal-Mart and Kroger. But they'll know they've made it big when they catch the taste buds of
one particular person.
'We'd like to be on 'Oprah's Favorite Things.' We'd like to be Oprah's favorite salsa,' Fay said, referring to
the daytime talk show host's popular segment that highlights products from clothing to computers.
Winfrey's favorite things are often snatched up by her millions of viewers.
The sisters dream big and work hard, but for now they're satisfied that the business is paying for itself,
including for a recently purchased delivery van.
Though they're breaking even now, they plan for it to soon supplement their decreased tobacco income.
Since 1996, their federal tobacco quota has been cut to about 8,000 pounds, half of what it used to be.
The recent buyout makes life more uncertain.
'When this takes off, we won't have time for tobacco anymore,' an optimistic David McDowell said.
Carla McDowell, a first-grade teacher, and Fay, an office administrator and nurse, said they hope in the
future the business will grow to the point that they can give up their day jobs.
'We both want to quit our full-time jobs so we can do this. That's what we're hoping, but we're not there
yet,' Carla McDowell said.
'Maybe one day we'll be like Hershey, Pa. You walk down there and smell chocolate, you'll walk to
Germantown and you'll smell salsa.''
By: Feoshia Henderson
The Kentucky Post
2/18/2005
GERMANTOWN, KY.-- Salsa was comfort food for Belinda Fay and Carla McDowell after their
mother died in 2002.
"We would chop and chop and cry. Chop some more and cry,' McDowell said from the sisters' newly
built commercial Germantown kitchen. 'It was very unexpected. So it was a good way for us to get
through the summer.'
The women had learned canning from their mother, Doris McCormick. And for several years, friends
and family had raved about their homemade salsa. Still, it wasn't until that summer, faced with an
overrun of the condiment, that the pair considered selling the fresh-from-the-garden mix.
'It kind of fell out of the sky into our laps,' Fay said of the idea.
The next year the pair started making salsa for sale from McDowell's home. It coincided with a change
in state law that lifted restrictions on farm-based food and allowed it to be sold at farmers markets,
certified roadside stands or from farms.
The sisters got a glimpse of the potential for their business right away: at their first festival in Fleming
County, they sold more than $2,000 of McDowell Farms Salsa.
'We thought, This is not a bad deal,' said McDowell's husband, David.
They soon outgrew the capacity of the small pots where they could only make 35 pints of salsa at time.
That's when Fay and McDowell hit the road from their tiny town outside Maysville and turned to
Frankfort for help.
They found it in a program that uses a chunk of the state's Phase I Tobacco Settlement money to help
the commonwealth's hard-hit tobacco farmers supplement their income. The fund was a good match for
the family farmers, whose income from the crop had been shrinking for nearly a decade.
Last April, with a $56,000 loan from the Agriculture Development Fund, Fay and McDowell paid for
half their commercial kitchen. The rest was financed through a bank loan. The 30-foot by 30-foot
kitchen, complete with a walk-in refrigerator, industrial strength oven and stainless-steel vat, allows them
to make 300 pints of the hot stuff at a time.
The boost from the state helped the business get off to a good financial start, Fay said.
'I think its great that we're not having to borrow (more) money,' she said.
In January, the state acknowledged the sisters' hard work by naming their business as one of two that
received the 2005 Innovations in Agriculture Award.
The sisters sell their one-pint jars of salsa for $5 each. The kitchen is shut down now, but during the
summer and fall they made 14,000 jars.
Carla McDowell said people like the simplicity of the salsa.
'We don't have a lot of spices. It's literally the fresh ingredients, with a little sugar, a little sauce. It's just
the fresh taste. People try it one time -- '
'And they're addicted,' Fay interjected.
The salsa comes in mild, medium, hot and very hot flavors. It's sold at festivals around the state or on
the McDowell Farms Salsa Web site at: www.mcdowellfarmssalsa.com. The site has a calendar that lists
the sisters' travel schedule.
Fay and McDowell have done most of the hard work of getting the business off the ground, including
getting state and federal certification for their kitchen, writing a business plan and completing the state
loan application.
But as they work to expand, sales and production have become a family affair. Their children,
McDowell's husband and the sisters' father, Carl McCormick, help out with making, delivering and selling
the product.
'The thing about our situation is we're lucky, we have a real close family, and if we need to call on
someone we can,' David McDowell said before pulling out a large picture of 16-member family at the
kitchen's June 2004 ribbon cutting. The picture sits just outside the kitchen.
One day those relatives might become employees. The women now are working to boost profits by
getting McDowell Farms Salsa into grocery store chains, Carla McDowell said.
'People know us in this area. So we have to go south to Lexington and north to Cincinnati,' she said.Late
last month, Lexington-based Slone's Signature Markets put the salsa on its shelves. The sisters also hope
to get into Wal-Mart and Kroger. But they'll know they've made it big when they catch the taste buds of
one particular person.
'We'd like to be on 'Oprah's Favorite Things.' We'd like to be Oprah's favorite salsa,' Fay said, referring to
the daytime talk show host's popular segment that highlights products from clothing to computers.
Winfrey's favorite things are often snatched up by her millions of viewers.
The sisters dream big and work hard, but for now they're satisfied that the business is paying for itself,
including for a recently purchased delivery van.
Though they're breaking even now, they plan for it to soon supplement their decreased tobacco income.
Since 1996, their federal tobacco quota has been cut to about 8,000 pounds, half of what it used to be.
The recent buyout makes life more uncertain.
'When this takes off, we won't have time for tobacco anymore,' an optimistic David McDowell said.
Carla McDowell, a first-grade teacher, and Fay, an office administrator and nurse, said they hope in the
future the business will grow to the point that they can give up their day jobs.
'We both want to quit our full-time jobs so we can do this. That's what we're hoping, but we're not there
yet,' Carla McDowell said.
'Maybe one day we'll be like Hershey, Pa. You walk down there and smell chocolate, you'll walk to
Germantown and you'll smell salsa.''
WriteUP!
 | |  | |  | |  | |  | |  |