It takes 76 steps to get a food business off the ground, according to the La Plata Food Equity Coalition, a subgroup of The Good Food Collective, a food systems nonprofit created to address food insecurity in underserved communities.
Challenges for food entrepreneurs lie around every corner, particularly for those who don’t speak English. Obtaining food and business licenses, accessing a kitchen, keeping up with inspections and taxes, and breaking into the market are hard enough without communication barriers.
The Coalition formed the Food Business Workgroup in 2022 to help entrepreneurs navigate the complicated landscape of food business and it has come a long way since. Food Business Workgroup leader Erin Jolley said this year alone, 28 entrepreneurs were routed to over 30 support organizations and resources.
Those resources include city licensing, county food safety, tax resources, financial services, and marketing and exposure at the Durango Farmers Market, she said.
The Food Business Workgroup has partnered with the city of Durango, Visit Durango and the Colorado Health Foundation this year for funding opportunities, she said. It has also worked with the National League of Cities and its City Inclusive Entrepreneurship program.
The workgroup and the city also helped Durango resident Priscila Newbold establish herself as La Plata County’s first and only bilingual food business navigator, Jolley said. Newbold is the boots on the ground helping entrepreneurs navigate available resources and services in order to get their businesses going.
Durango Economic Opportunity Manager Tommy Crosby, who joined the Food Business Workgroup last year, said the workgroup has perfected the “art of the warm handoff.”
It’s identified when an entrepreneur should be introduced to someone at the La Plata County Public Health Department, a bank for financing or a farmers market contact to get a vendor booth set up, he said.
Entrepreneurs who have worked with Newbold and the coalition say they would not have the levels of confidence, business understanding or success they enjoy now without the Food Business Workgroup’s aid.
Durango resident Maria Laguna, speaking in Spanish with Newbold at her side to interpret for her, said she opened Taqueria La Costa, a food truck in Durango that serves Mexican tacos, in the Durango Doughworks parking lot in July 2023.
She’s since relocated to 11th Street Station.
Laguna said her mother ran a taqueria in Mexico, and she was motivated to follow in her mother’s footsteps. But she didn’t know where to start.
City, county, state and federal taxes were particularly challenging, she said. How to pay, what to pay and when. Laguna met Jolley, who connected her with Newbold. Newbold helped her set up an account with the Colorado Department of Revenue and introduced her to the proper city channels to get her squared away.
Laguna is looking to purchase a new food truck for Taqueria La Costa. Newbold said food trucks and health regulations are another important factor entrepreneurs need to be aware of.
She said health departments have different requirements for food trucks depending on what cuisines are being prepared.
Laguna said running a business is hard and requires a lot of sacrifice. But she is making sacrifices now to improve her future. She likened starting a business to planting a seed that will someday sprout, grow and flourish.
When she first opened last year, her customer base was mostly Hispanic – people who recognize authentic Mexican food. But more people are starting to take interest in her business, she said. Her food is based on menus in taquerias around Mexico City, which have their own styles compared to taquerias in northern Mexico.
Beef tongue, or lengua, and quesabirria, beef and cheese folded in a tortilla, are among the foods she prepares, in addition to the corn tortillas she makes herself, she said.
She said her long-term vision for Taqueria La Costa is a full-fledged brick-and-mortar restaurant with fresh produce sourced from local farmers.
Durango resident Arely Sanchez described herself as a social person who believes in the value of community. She moved to the United States from El Salvador and, after connecting with a small Hispanic church group in the Durango area, she started making pupusas for the group.
The Food Business Workgroup helped Sanchez get a booth at the Durango Farmers Market in October and most recently at the Holiday Farmer’s Market at the La Plata County Fairgrounds on Saturday.
Her blossoming business, Pupuseria Torogoz, is named for its staple dish, pupusa.
She said after training with the Food Business Workgroup, she’s more organized and equipped to take care of herself and her business, which brings her security and independence. Working for herself, she spends more time with her four children than when she was working for an employer.
One of her biggest challenges has been navigating business resources without speaking English. Having Newbold and the Food Business Workgroup around to help her connect with resources has been a huge boost to her confidence.
Her latest challenge is finding a long-term location for which to prepare and sell her food. When she has a vendor booth, she’s able to prepare pupusas on the spot to a customer’s liking. Currently, she using Manna’s kitchen area to prepare her food, she said.
Newbold said she is coordinating with Sanchez and a real estate agent to find a more permanent location, which has proved challenging because spaces are limited and often expensive.
Durango resident Shelby Kohn is another fresh entrepreneur who’s working with the Food Business Workgroup to get her business, Shelby’s Shakes, up and running.
She launched Shelby’s Shakes, a granola-based snack business, in November 2023. Before, she experimented with recipes out of her own kitchen. Her test audience was her friends and colleagues. She uses spent grain, a waste product of the beer-brewing process, to make her granola snacks.
She calls her original, classic snack “Cinnamon Swing.” It tastes of cinnamon, vanilla and honey. She compared it to Cinnamon Toast Crunch cereal, but healthier. There is a gluten-free version that substitutes grain for gluten-free oats.
Among her other creations are “Cocoa Calypso,” a dark chocolate flavor blended with walnut or almond; “Cha-Cha Chai,” a seven-spice chai blend; and “Vanilla Bean Boogie,” a simple but versatile snack with a base vanilla flavor, she said.
Unlike some of the Food Business Workgroup’s clients, Kohn is practiced and fluent in English. But the workgroup still proved helpful in teaching her the language of business.
Kohn also uses Manna’s kitchen to prepare her snacks. She said that alone has been a game changer.
“When I was baking at home, I could do like 13 bags a day, max, which is less than, like, about 10 pounds. That was an upper limit,” she said. “And, you know, I lived with three other people. Other people need to use the kitchen.”
At Manna, she can produce up to 50 pounds of shake mix per session, she said. That’s propelled her business from a small side hustle that earns a couple hundred bucks into a full-fledged, self-sustaining operation.
Selling her shakes once a week at the Durango Farmers Market through the spring and summer was enough to sustain her. But as the market season drew to a close in the fall, she decided to pursue her wholesale license.
Now, she sells her snacks to Durango Natural Foods Co-Op, James Ranch and the Grub Hub at Fort Lewis College, which was her first wholesale customer.
cburney@durangoherald.com
