Overview:
The Western Massachusetts Food Processing Center, a part of the Franklin County Community Development Corporation, is celebrating its 25th anniversary of helping small businesses in the area. The center provides a range of services, including creating products, offering guidance with business plans, and providing financial sustainability. The center has assisted around 800 businesses, including Hot Oven Cookies, Stout Pigeon Coffee, and Emma's Market, and has been recognized as an economic engine and lifeline to small businesses in the area.
GREENFIELD — The Franklin County Community Development Corporation (CDC)’s Western Massachusetts Food Processing Center is marking its 25th anniversary of working to “even the playing field for small businesses,” in the words of client Sheila Coon.
CDC Farm and Food Products Program Director Kate Minifie, who has worked at the Western Massachusetts Food Processing Center for seven years, described the center as an avenue for farmers to boost their businesses with “value-added” products, like sauces that do not depend on short harvest seasons.
“You can charge a lot more money for a jar of tomato sauce than for a tomato, and people want to have an expanded product line,” Minifie said during a June 4 block party to celebrate the anniversary, sporting the themed shirt for the party.
On her gray tee, printed by Taproot Threads, a drawn hand squishes a tomato, surrounded by the words, “Crushin’ it since 2001.”
Kate Hunter, Nancy Hazard and Caitlin von Schmidt share a laugh at the Franklin County Community Development Corporation’s block party on June 4. 
John Waite, executive director of the Franklin County Community Development Corporation, speaks at the June 4 block party. 
Ashley Randle, commissioner of the Massachusetts Department of Agricultural Resources, and Sen. Jo Comerford gave citations marking the Western Massachusetts Food Processing Center’s 25th anniversary. 
People line up for food prepared by Emma’s Market of Belchertown at the Franklin County Community Development Corporation’s block party on June 4.
Minifie joined the CDC team to help grow food processing in the community, an often “forgotten part of the food system,” and play a direct role in the businesses that help the community run through “full-service, robust support.”
As “co-packers” for local businesses, the Western Massachusetts Food Processing Center, operated on Wells Street in Greenfield, also helps ease the processing load “so they get to go focus on running their [businesses] and engaging with their customers and being in the community,” according to Minifie.
“In that way, we’re almost a partner in the business,” she explained.
The approximately 150 block party attendees got a literal taste of the center’s impact by snacking on cookies from Hot Oven Cookies in Springfield, Coon’s business, as well as sipping drinks from Stout Pigeon Coffee and filling their plates with Emma’s Market’s barbecue buffet — all businesses that the center helped blossom.
John Waite, executive director of the Franklin County CDC, told the crowd that these three businesses represent only a few of the roughly 800 that the Western Massachusetts Food Processing Center has assisted in some way, whether by providing a space to create products, offering guidance with business plans or bolstering financial sustainability.
“It turned out that the Food Processing Center was much more than just a kitchen for us,” said Kristin Howard, general manager of Real Pickles in Greenfield, an early client of the center. “It was also a community of small entrepreneurs trading ideas, sharing experiences and learning from one another.”
Echoing Coon, Abby Ferla of Foxtrot Farm in Ashfield, another client, explained that the Franklin County CDC helps small food producers compete with the larger players.
“We live in a world that is really geared toward big producers and a lot of the regulations are geared toward big producers,” Ferla said. “It’s very hard to do things on your own, and the CDC makes it possible to try something new.”
State officials then presented the Western Massachusetts Food Processing Center with several recognitions of its 25 years in the community.
“When you think back 25 years ago, this was visionary. This didn’t exist in the state before,” Massachusetts Department of Agricultural Resources Commissioner Ashley Randle said before handing Waite and Liz Buxton, director of operations at the Western Massachusetts Food Processing Center, a citation from Gov. Maura Healey and Lt. Gov. Kim Driscoll. “They’re paying it back in order to be able to pay it forward, and that’s really what it’s all about, and we continue to see that commitment time and time again.”
State Sen. Jo Comerford, D-Northampton, also presented Waite and Buxton with a citation from Senate President Karen Spilka “in recognition of 25 years of growing and developing businesses and economies in western and northern central Massachusetts and far beyond.”
“It’s an economic engine and it’s a lifeline to so many businesses, allowing them to compete in what’s an otherwise tough-to-impossible market,” Regional Manager Koby Gardner-Levine said on behalf of Congressman Jim McGovern’s office.
Gardner-Levine and Chris Lyons, the state director for rural development with the United States Department of Agriculture, also gave the Western Massachusetts Food Processing Center citations recognizing the milestone.
With 25 years of supporting small businesses under its belt, Waite and Buxton said they plan on continuing the organization’s impact.
“What excites me most is that after 25 years, we’re still finding new ways to serve our community,” Buxton said.
“Every day, there’s new businesses,” Waite said, beaming. “The mission is so important that we’re going to keep making it happen.”
