Des Moines Register
05-28-06
His corn cobs jell into a new niche business
Atlantic man cooks up a sweet idea from an old family recipe
ANNE FITZGERALD
REGISTER AGRIBUSINESS WRITER
A rural Atlantic man is building a business based on crop residue.
Using a 100-year-old recipe from his mother's side of the family, Randall Krogh is
making edible jelly from corn cobs.
This spring, Krogh Family Farms' corn-cob sweetened spread is making its debut
at farmers markets in Ankeny and downtown Des Moines.
For Krogh, a former farmer turned auctioneer and factory worker, the project is a
way to keep a hand in agriculture. He is part of a small but growing number of
Iowa entrepreneurs developing niche food products.
While representing a tiny portion of U.S. food sales, some of the innovations
have proved to be profitable for their creators.
Sean and Becki Sullivan of Cumming, for instance, built a niche business by
making specialty sauces and salsas from chili peppers they raised in their
backyard. The couple sells Juan O'Sullivan's Gourmet Salsa at Des Moines'
weekly Downtown Farmers Market, as well as online and at various retail
locations.
Sullivan, who grew up on a Dallas County farm, is national sales manager for a
computer networking products company, while his wife works full-time on their
business.
Annual sales for their backyard business run into five figures, he said.
Food industry and agricultural experts see growing demand for such products.
"Consumers are wanting more products that have a story,'' said Rich Pirog,
marketing and food systems program leader at the Leopold Center for
Sustainable Agriculture at Iowa State University in Ames. "I'm hearing that at
all levels."
Krogh, 47, first made corn cob jelly for an Exira High School assignment. His
classmates kidded him when he carried a bucket of corn cobs to class, but he
had the last laugh.
"I was in a foods class and we had a contest, and I won," he said.
Years later and no longer farming, he was looking for another source of income.
He decided to make the jelly again after he was unable to find the product in local
grocery stores. Relatives and friends who tasted Krogh's sweetened spread
encouraged him to produce it for commercial sale.
He tapped the Food Processing Center at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln,
which runs a program that helps food entrepreneurs develop their ideas into
marketable products. Krogh already had perfected his product. The University of
Nebraska center helped him develop business and marketing plans. His parents,
Charles and Charlotte Krogh of Exira, provided financial backing, and Frank
Spillers, co-owner of Global Horizons Training and Consulting in Atlantic, helped
Krogh develop the business.
Krogh uses red corn cobs, as well as white ones, to make jelly. He boils the cobs
and uses extracted liquid to flavor and color the jelly. A 15-pound bag of cobs
can yield enough extract for 150 8-ounce jars of jelly, he said.
He has contracted with two Audubon County farmers for cobs of each color next
year.
Krogh knows that there will be setbacks along the way. There have been already.
On May 11, he was to have picked up his first batch of jelly at Todd's, a food
processor and packager on Northeast 14th Street in Des Moines. But Krogh's
product labels had not arrived yet, so pickup was delayed.
The former farmer knows it will take time and patience to build the business, but
he believes he has a unique product.
"I came up with another value-added product from corn," Krogh said. "This is the
year for corn. I mean, ethanol and now this."