This story originally appeared on News OK. See original story here.
STILLWATER — When the 96,000-square-foot Robert S. Kerr Food & Agricultural Products Center opened in 1997, its mission was to support Oklahoma industries and cultivate entrepreneurship.
Inside the building at 320 N Monroe Ave., industry professionals and scientists work side by side, offering animal harvesting, food manufacturing, grain-milling, sensory profiling, food microbiology, analytical and application laboratories for demonstration and prototype testing.
Since its inception, the center has assisted more than 1,000 Oklahoma clients through 3,000 technical and business projects discover, develop and deliver data to develop value-added food and agricultural products and processing in Oklahoma.
But the partnership between private and public sectors didn't come easy.
"This all dates back to the 1960s and 1970s when there grew an outcry from the agriculture community for conversion in-state," said Dr. J. Roy Escoubas, director of the FAPC since 2002.
"Things grown here were being shipped back from out-of-state conversion plants and sold to Oklahoma consumers at a premium," said Escoubas, who came to the FAPC after 25 years in the food-packing business.
The right man
One of the folks most concerned with the paradox was an entrepreneurial farmer out of Altus named Bob Kerr. He was concerned enough he decided to run for state senate in 1986 and won.
It took the next decade to get the bill fashioned and turned down "two or three times" according to Jim Brooks, manager of business and marketing services for the FAPC, before passing the governor's desk.
"Gov. Bellmon (who was in office when Kerr began spearheading the project) was concerned about the center being run strictly by academia," Brooks said
Escoubas concurred, "I talked to Bob Kerr many times over the years, and he always said, 'Whatever you do, keep that thing focused on the industry.' I knew what he meant, he didn't mean to keep academia out, he wanted to make sure there was always a good balance between industry and research."
Long before ground was broken in 1994, organizers visited Texas A&M and the University of Nebraska to observe comparable programs.
"We needed to develop a center for economic development and product development based on academic research and application of business technology," Escoubas said. "None of the schools we visited had anything quite like it. But we learned a lot, particularly from the University of Nebraska."
Escoubas said other programs were weighted more toward research, which helped Kerr and his team fashion a center that would have more practical entry points for the agriculture industry, which created more experiential practicum for students.
"By the time Kerr's bill was voted on, it had consensus support throughout the Legislature," Escoubas said.
The center bearing the late senator's name opened Jan. 1, 1997.
"Bob Kerr was one of those guys that everyone loved and respected," Escoubas said. "He had ethics and it earned him the respect of everyone."
Escoubas said Kerr's goals have been generally accomplished as the center continues to partner with industry, cultivate clients and harvest good students.
Basic training
Among the many clients cultivated are the four entrepreneurs The Oklahoman started tracking in 2014.
Suan Grant, founder and owner of Suan Foods, attended the Basic Training Entrepreneurial Workshop in 2009.
"I had been making my jelly for decades and everyone told me I needed to bottle it and sell it, but I didn't know how," Grant said. "I had called the OSU's Extension Office here in Oklahoma City to see how to get my jelly in the Farmers Market and was immediately referred to the FAPC."
She said she learned if she was interested in selling her products, she needed to first attend the one-day workshop.
"They are very honest and frank with you," Grant said. "They encourage you; they take you by the hand and lead you through the process."
The all-day seminar is a crash course in business operations with an emphasis on food and beverage products, including food manufacturing, health department regulations, marketing, distribution, labeling, patent and trademark, branding, processing, co-packing, and the Made in Oklahoma Coalition.
Brooks said Basic Training is intended to be both a way forward for some and a signal to go back to the drawing board for others.
"Part of the reason we're so thorough is we want don't want to set people up to fail by telling them how easy it is, because it's not," Brooks said. "To be successful, you have to accept that it's going to a lot of hard work."
The class ends with a Client Success Path section that culminates with attendees filling out a sample business plan.
"It's only one day but it is packed," Susan Witt of Ace in the Bowl Salsa said. "I had the name, I had the recipe, I had the slogan, I just didn't have the package. Even though I had all that, it was still a little scary."
Witt's first step to deciding whether to move forward came on the internet.
"So when I got home from Basic Training, I took a deep breath and Googled 'ace in the bowl,'" she explained. "And it had a hit.
"My heart just sank. So I clicked on the link, figured I might as well see what it is and then I just burst out laughing — it was a plumber up in Oregon who specialized in toilets."
"I don't know how we would still be in business without the FAPC," Brooke Franklin of Diane's Signature Dressings for Salad said. "The Basic Training opened our eyes to a lot of things we hadn't thought of."
The most recent attendees from our group were Karlin Williamson and Michael Clark of Ice T Kings, who said the class bolstered their resolve.
"We had a lot to learn," Clark said of their experience in 2014. "It was an incredible amount of information. It set us on the right path."
From Suan's Foods to Ice T Kings and many others in between who found the class to be the way forward, the real work begins after its over.
Brooks and a team of staff with a variety of areas of expertise then make an assessment of the product.
"When we first sampled the tea from the Ice T Kings, our recommendation was that they cut back on the sweetness," Brooks said. "So they went back to their kitchen and worked on it and the next time we tasted it, it was really good and everyone agreed we were ready to move forward."
With a proper business plan and the product reviewed to satisfaction, clients are then handed a pilot plan. At the top of the list of tasks to check off that pilot plan is product scale-up — to ensure the recipes hold up to batch production.
Sounds simple, but it took one of our subjects two years to get to that point. When Making it to Market continues, clients discuss their experiences during the scale-up of their products.