Page 33 - Flathead Beacon // 9.9.15

“WHEN WE TALK ABOUT ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT, IT’S USUALLY ABOUT CAPITAL AND TRYING TO BRING MORE MONEY INTO
THE MARKET. BUT IT’S A WHOLE DIFFERENT CHALLENGE WHEN LABOR IS THE CONSTRAINT.” BARB WAGNER, CHIEF ECONOMIST AT THE STATE DEPARTMENT OF LABOR AND INDUSTRY
TRANSACTIONS
WEEKLY BUSINESS BRIEFING
SPECIALTY SAUCES TICKLE THE TASTE BUDS
When Loretta Lang began peddling her specialty line of salsas and jams around the Flathead Valley, she had no idea they’d become so popular.
Now, she can hardly keep up with demand as shops from Lakeside to Kalispell have begun carrying her sumptuous wares.
The business, Sassy Sauces and Such, LLC, appeals to customers with a savory solicitation – “Let us tickle your taste buds” – and its product line doesn’t disappoint. The Sassy Salsa is an all-around party pleaser, while the huckleberry pepper jam, hot cherry, cherry rhubarb, cherry berry, and raspberry jams are a commixture of sweet and savory.
Lang has been canning and jarring goods for decades, having learned the craft from her grandmother, who urged her to pay close attention to detail and prepare batches with “a lot of love.” After years of urging by friends and family, she began selling her salsa and jams commercially a few years ago as a “one-woman operation.”
“It just took off like wildfire,” she said. “This is the first time that I have ventured into the markets and they’ve just been running off the shelves all summer.”
Sassy Sauces and Such products are available at: Blacktail Market and the Cherry Haus in Lakeside, Norm’s News and Sassafras in down- town Kalispell, and the Apple Barrel in Evergreen.
Opening, moving or expanding a business in Northwest Montana? If you would like to be featured in “Transactions,” please email information to [email protected]
businesses that are higher value so the employees have higher wages,” Gardella said.
The SBA has taken particular inter- est in the northwest corner of the state, which has taken longer to bounce back in employment. The DLI report notes that Northwest Montana is gaining strength with “respectable” job growth in the last three years, but this corner of the state still holds the highest levels of unem- ployment, at an average of 6 percent in all the counties.
As of July, Glacier County sat at 9.5 percent unemployment, Lincoln County at 8.5 percent, and Sanders County at 7.2 percent, the three highest rates in the state.
The SBA dispatched former Kalispell mayor and former Columbia Falls city manager Roger Hopkins, the current deputy director at SBA in Montana, to be stationed in Columbia Falls and focus on the northwest region.
Hopkins said he believes the north- west corner has the entrepreneurs and can-do spirit to tackle the remaining unemployment issues, now that previ- ous major industries, such as those in
natural resources, are slowing.
“The creativity that abounds and the willingness of people to stay and make something happen even during what were some of the darkest time anywhere in the state in the last few years is stun- ning, and I think it bodes well for the
future of the area,” Hopkins said.
He said the type of entrepreneurial energy in the Flathead would do well to spread to Sanders, Lincoln, and Gla- cier counties, and his role will be to help introduce such business owners to help- ful tools, such as aid in the export pro-
cess or financing.
Former dominant industries such as
timber could make a comeback through technological innovations, Hopkins said, like the work being done at Columbia Falls-based SmartLam, which adds value towoodproducts.
“Manufacturing and the outcrop- ping of small manufacturers in the val- ley is remarkable,” Hopkins said. “That gets back to the entrepreneurial spirit. It says, ‘I want to live here,’ and people are bringing skills and experience from other parts of the country.”
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“Our dead are never dead to us, until we have forgotten them.”
- George Eliot Remembering with Love and
SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 12TH 12 – 2 P.M.
Stop by the lobby of The Summit for a Book Signing of
Surviving Disordered Eating
One Bite at a Time
One Bite at a Time
With Authors Barbi Webber & Carrie Thiel
Respect, those we lost on 9/11!
Glacier Park VFW Post 2252 & Lounge
330 1st Avenue West, Kalispell, MT 59901
ONE-STOP SHOPPING
FOR YOUR
DRYWALL PROJECT
Friendly, Prompt, Knowledgable Service
Let us stock the job or available for drive-thru loading
“Locally owned since 1988.”
160 8TH AVE. WN • KALISPELL • 752-2644 WWW.NW-DRYWALL.COM
SEPTEMBER 9, 2015 // FLATHEADBEACON.COM
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205 Sunnyview Lane, Kalispell, MT 59901
0 8TH AVE. WN KALISPELL 752-2644
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