he expense of sourcing raw materials into Alaska and then distributing finished products out has baffled and thwarted manufacturing ventures, big and small. Yet many Alaskans have succeeded well enough to thrive in the widget-making sector.
Local material sourcing (and sometimes a side hustle or two) helps support the entrepreneur as well as their surrounding community, which benefits from a lively local economy.
The State of Alaska has the Made in Alaska program to promote products made, manufactured, or handcrafted in the state. Products that meet the program’s “51 percent or more” criteria of being produced in Alaska are allowed to display the polar bear sticker logo, signifying the item’s authenticity as Made in Alaska.
Made from fermented honey, water, and yeast, mead is the first known alcoholic beverage. The mazers (mead makers) at Beard Brothers use organic fruits, roots, and berries, along with honey from their family’s land, where they also raise dairy cows and produce raw, unfiltered milk.
More than market distance or transportation costs, owner Dave Bragg says the main obstacle to growth is that people just aren’t familiar with mead. But the ancient beverage is making a comeback.
“Mead is more recently becoming recognized as an alternative to beer and wine,” says Bragg.
Just as microbrewers have tap rooms and wineries host tastings, Beard Brothers promotes mead through social events.
“Successful, to us, means providing an excuse for community to gather, and in a community, everybody has something to offer,” says Bragg. “People who meet at the meadery may otherwise never cross paths, and the community continues to expand with each friendship as we support each other in different ways.”
Beard Brothers had a busy summer with a mead tasting at the Alaska Scottish Highland Games at the Alaska State Fair grounds in Palmer.
“We enjoy participating in and attending Scottish Highland games throughout the United States, and especially in Alaska,” says Bragg. “These events traditionally have some common threads: family, community, healthy competition, and mead.”
Market penetration did not come naturally but through invention, as Bragg explains. “Our head mazer, Connor, became interested in creating craft meads and soon found a niche: mead that can be enjoyed by wine and beer enthusiasts alike—refreshing light meads that are not too sweet and not too dry. After creating a consistent number of recipes, we decided to share our love of mead on a larger scale, as there were no meaderies in the Fairbanks area,” he says.
How large can the scale get? Bragg says the company’s customers are helping find out.
“We currently sell only within Alaska,” he says. “As demand drives supply and distribution, we ask our loyal customers to initiate a conversation with their local stores to make this possible in more areas. We do have out-of-state visitors who buy our mead and take it to the Lower 48 and other countries.”
In December 2011, with fearlessness and a desire to offer healthy food, the Alaska Flour Company opened. The company grows barley in fields near the terminus of the Alaska Highway, and it mills a hulless variety for human consumption. The mill was a major capital investment.
“It was a big venture for us, for our size. We just didn’t know how people would respond,” Wrigley says. “But we did have three goals: 1) increase food security in Alaska; 2) create new markets for local farmers; and 3) prepare to pass the farm on to the next generation.”
The family grows the grain on their land and stone-burr mill it there, and the company has developed numerous products, such as packaged meals and mixes.
Burr grain mills have two stone grinding plates that fit on top of each other to grind different flour textures. “People were not familiar with it and a little reluctant to try something new and untested,” Wrigley says. “We couldn’t get a lot of it to move, so we started making cereal and couscous, and they moved.”
With the couscous and cereal well received, the company diversified further.
Alaska Flour Company offers a variety of baked good mixes, such as the Great Alaska Pancake or Raspberry Muffin. In addition to mixes for baked goods, the company has customers covered for dinner as well, manufacturing barley risotto, beef and barley stew mix, and chicken and herb, Tuscan, and Cajun barley couscous.
The recent addition of a bakery also allows the Alaska Flour Company to offer take-out frozen treats like brownies, muffins, and biscuits.
“It’s a closed system,” Wrigley says. “And in an effort to make it successful, we don’t want to force someone to just take what we have.”
The company is now producing frozen pizza with sauce and cheese, and customers can add toppings of their choice.
While adhering to the required 51 percent for the Made in Alaska program, Wrigley partners with a spice house in Soldotna that imports the spices used in the mixes and baked goods.
With the successful expansion of the mixes and baked and frozen goods, the company felt confident enough to add another mill.
However, with farming, bad weather can strike at any time.
“Two years ago, there was an early freeze, and we lost the crops, so we sold it all as animal fodder,” Wrigley says.
Back on track after that, Wrigley says the business is running smoothly. “We pay our bills, pay ourselves and several employees,” he says. “There’s not a lot of profit in it, but I hope to be able to donate more to the food bank.” He figures Alaska Flour Company has donated 2 to 3 tons already.
Alaska Plastic Recovery
Beard Bothers Meadery
Juliana Miller
Blobs are squishy splotches of gelatinous goo, like a marshmallow, gummy bear, playdough, and fluffy pillow all in one adorable package, Miller explains.
“I started doodling them in middle school science class,” she says. “I illustrated for other people’s books, then I thought, ‘Why not make my own?’’’
Aside from selling her books, she also offers a one-stop illustration, design, and publication service, with pricing done on a book-by-book basis. Her hand-painted pet portraits are a perfect way to celebrate one of life’s most faithful companions.
But it’s the Blobs that enchant people, she says.
Scott Rhode | Alaska Business
Now she makes them to sell, but really it’s more of an adoption, complete with an official form.
“At the Tanana [Valley] State Fair, all Blobs were adopted out, and I had to make more,” Miller says. “I started making polymer clay Blobs, and with the silicone molds I can make animal blobs.”
After three years, she was able to put money back into her business and make a “meager” life from it, she says. “A lot of what I do is listen to my customers,” Miller says.
She believes Blobs help with mental health by adding sweetness to their lives. “I try to target that certain personality type who enjoys a Blob because they still have a little of their childhood in them,” she says.
As for herself, she says, “I just feel happy in my shop; sweet makes me happy.”
“Plastics are accumulating on our shores and in our landfills,” he says.
He estimates between 75 million and 125 million pounds of plastic annually wash up on Alaska’s shores. So the material he collects from Alaska coastal towns and villages is 100 percent Alaska sourced.
After pilot projects last year in Seward and Palmer, Alaska Plastic Recovery is sweeping through Haines this fall. Next spring, the mobile processor sails to Yakutat with a barge holding 20-foot containers.
“There is a large portion of Alaska’s population that is passionate about reducing these plastics,” he says. “The idea was to create outdoor construction products from this material, Grizzly Wood, that can last up to fifty years.”
So far, Simpson has recovered 15,000 pounds of marine plastic, mostly in Prince William Sound. The trash becomes raw material for a transportable factory that blends the waste into Grizzly Wood, a lumber-shaped product.
Can Simpson make a living as a manufacturer?
“Too early to say,” he says. “If we can build sales channels for Grizzly Wood, this business will succeed. Key markets are outdoor home construction, trail rehabilitation, and parks and recreation.”
He is doing well enough to employ seven people.
“Right now, there’s no profit,” he says. “We are reinvesting all our sales proceeds back into the business.”
Grizzly Wood is priced the same as its primary competitors, including Trex and Bear Board. Now only selling in Alaska, Simpson looks to expand to the Lower 48, though freight costs and labor are constant issues.
Going public?
“Oh,” Simpson says, “That’s five or ten years down the road.”
Aspiring manufacturers can get certified in the latest quality process standards set by the International Organization for Standardization or sign up for bi-monthly Thursday live interviews at noon featuring local manufacturers who share their road to success.
Through a partnership with UAA’s College of Engineering, Alaska MEP provides semester-long engineering projects to evaluate manufacturing facilities to optimize workflows, provide HVAC safety management, fluid mechanics, design optimization, automation software development, wind and hydro energy efficiencies, and more at no cost.
Beginning with an assessment on the viability of a business, Alaska MEP determines if it can help or if it can find an entity that can.
All-Alaska beverages, packaged cereals, recycled building material, and blobby pets are just the beginning of diversifying the state’s manufacturing output.