About The Show:

“Knowing where your food comes from is a huge part of your life”.

- Becky Canning

Born and raised on a farm in Ames, Iowa, Becky Canning had a deep-rooted appreciation for locally sourced food. In 2014, her move to Fayetteville, Arkansas introduced her to a community that echoed her passion for homegrown produce. It was this shared ethos that led her and her husband to launch Parmelee Homestead Creations in 2021. Specializing in jams, jellies, sauces, and salsas, the business also offers home canning lessons and seedlings for aspiring patio gardeners.

Adapting her farming techniques to Arkansas's distinct soil and climate was a challenge for Becky. She found innovative solutions, such as using compost and raised garden beds, to compensate for the less fertile ground. To further her business acumen, she participated in a local food-focused business program, gaining invaluable insights and resources.

At the core of her venture is a commitment to supporting local food systems. Parmelee Homestead Creations aims to provide high-quality products tailored to diverse dietary needs, like their vegan raspberry jam. Becky stresses the importance of community and accountability, valuing the role that organizations like local co-ops play in connecting consumers with farmers.

Though she misses the rich soil of her Iowa upbringing, Becky has wholeheartedly embraced her new life in the Ozarks. Through Parmley Homestead Creations, she continues to foster a love for home canning and gardening within her community.

What You Will Learn In This Episode:

• Discover the magic of Parmelee Homestead Creations' canning and engaging with local foods.
• Understand the immense value of supporting local farmers and businesses via co-ops.
• Uncover unique ways to adapt and adjust your business strategies in the face of challenges.
• Appreciate the role of The Co-Op in fostering community bonding and spreading educational endeavors.
• Grasp the importance of choosing sustainable and healthy food options for a better consumer experience.

All this and more on this episode of Ozark Natural Foods The Co-Op Podcast.

Important Links and Mentions In This Episode:

• Visit Ozark Natural Foods store in Fayetteville, Arkansas, to purchase jam, jelly, Sauce, and Salsas from Parmelee Homestead Creations.
• Embrace the valuable opportunity you've been given by indulging in the gift of canning lessons. 
• Follow Parmelee Homestead Creations on Facebook.

This Episode is Sponsored By:

Ozark Natural Foods

Connect More With Ozark Natural Foods:

• Grab our Newsletter 
• Email Us at Info@ONF.Coop
• Connect With Our Facebook Page 
• Join The Facebook Group
• Connect With Our Instagram 
• Connect With Our LinkedIn Page
• Learn more about the History of Food Coops

We get by with a little help from our Co-Op Members and Friends!

Please consider rating and reviewing our podcast on Apple Podcasts or your Podcast player of choice. A little Love goes a long way. 

ONF – COOP – PARMELEE HOMESTEAD CREATIONS

Welcome to Ozark Natural Foods, The Coop Podcast featuring stories and information about the largest food Coop in Arkansas. Based in Fayetteville and serving all of Northwest Arkansas, the Coop has been around for 50-plus years, providing community and encouraging a love of food that is good for us and our planet. Learn our history and standards of quality, meet our Coop members, employees, and vendors, and understand why being locally focused is vital to our food, products, and economy. The Coop has leveraged cooperative economics here in Northwest Arkansas to bring the freshest and the best food to our whole community. Listen to Ozark Natural Foods, the Coop Podcast today to learn why.

Hey, folks, and welcome to the Ozark Natural Foods Coop Podcast. I'm your host Randy Wilburn, and we have a great episode in store for you today. We are sitting down with Becky Parmelee from Parmelee Homestead Creations to learn more about her business and also just about her understanding of the Coop business model. Becky, how are you doing today?

I’m doing great. Thank you so much for inviting me.

Absolutely. Well, the first thing I want to do is I want you to tell our audience just a little bit about yourself and how you got connected with the Coop.

I am originally from Ames, Iowa, and I moved down to Fayetteville for a career opportunity in the winter of 2014, and it was actually a co-worker who introduced me to the Coop. Prior to that, I had lived on a farm in central Iowa, and all of our stuff was homegrown and locally sourced. It doesn't get much more local than that, so it was really nice to find that when we moved here to the Coop.

So did it remind you of home?

It did. I love shopping there. It was one of my favorite parts of the week.

Oh, that's awesome. That's awesome. So tell us a little bit about Parmelee Homestead Creations.

Sure. My husband and I started a business late summer of 2021. There was an unexpected employment change in our family, and out of necessity, this was something I knew how to do. And so I make jam, jelly sauce and salsa, sweet, spicy, and savory and just a little bit of everything. We also teach home canning lessons and start seeds in my little hoop house. So we have seedlings in the spring for everybody who wants to patio garden. So, yeah, it's kind of a full-service, one-stop, small-scale greenhouse.

Okay. I love that. That's great. I think we mentioned victory gardens along those lines.

That's how I grew up. So it's much easier to grow things in Iowa than it is in Arkansas. We have that. [RW - Do you think so?] Yeah, just a little. That dark, moist soil, and so it's beautiful. Almost anything will grow there. And then learning how to garden here on the bedrock has been quite a challenge, but we use a lot of compost and a lot of raised garden beds. We pair our raised garden beds and then hoop up and over with a trellising system and I can get seven crops per pair. So it's nice. We send two down and four up and one up and over so you can grow a lot in a small amount of space on our little urban farm.

Now, I'm just going to be honest with you. You totally went over my head when you started. I understood it. But it's like, wow, I'll have to play that back and listen to it again. But you just gave some farming science right there, and I appreciate you sharing that. I love that because it lends itself to the whole conversation that we're having anyway with regard to local farms providing food to a place like the Coop and why it's so important to have businesses like the Coop running on a regular basis because farms need a place to supply their food too. Since 1971 this Coop has been around, and it has made a difference in the lives of people both near and far. And so it goes without saying that what you do with your canning and using the freshest ingredients possible is perfectly in line with the way that the Coop operates.

Thank you. What I love about the Coop system is that it not only does it support farmers, but if you have a food allergy in your house, you need to know that the products that you're buying haven't been packaged someplace. Just take peanuts for example. You need a product that's not manufactured in a facility that has peanuts. Well, we do that. We are a nut-free facility and when you get places like the Coop, you know that you're getting a quality ingredient because somebody made that. They made that for you, for your neighbors. And when you're selling to your neighbors, there's a higher level of accountability and I think that that makes the products that the Coop sells better.

Absolutely. And actually, you sharing what you just shared allows me to share some of our standards of quality here at the Coop. One of those is that obviously, the Coop evaluates every product that they sell with everyone's health in mind; anyone that's buying food there. They stand behind the principle of not carrying genetically modified foods in the stores and that also means that the products sold at Ozark Natural Foods are free of artificial preservatives, artificial colors, artificial flavors, artificial sweeteners, chemical additives, and any type of added MSG, non-irradiated food, organically grown and locally sourced whenever possible.

I love it. It's perfect. Our raspberry jam for example has three ingredients. It has raspberry and organic pectin, which is sourced from the peels of apples and sugar. Just this year, we have switched from white sugar to raw sugar so our sugar is vegan, which is great because now this product with three ingredients will not trigger anyone who has alpha-gal. And because I live in Bella Vista and we're not far from the back 40 trail ticks are very prevalent and alpha-gal continues to become a problem in Northwest Arkansas. And so, to make sure the ingredients that you're putting in your product do have that high quality, those high standards, makes it easier because you may not need that and I may not need that, but somebody's going to need that, and providing for everybody that having that inclusive aspect of our recipes is something that's really important to me.

So, I want to ask you this question based on your experience coming here to the Coop and spending almost a decade, as you said, you came here in 2014. What makes a food Coop different than other grocery stores?

It’s better. You want more than that. Okay. So I think the quality is higher because you're accountable to your neighbors. I think that it's fresher. I think that it's easier to shop because there's more selection and more variety. And sometimes that means you have to make sure you're shopping in season. You're not always going to find things that are locally sourced that are out of season.

You can't find blueberries in the wintertime.

At this time of the year it’s hard but when they're in season we make some really great jams. In general, I think it's much better. I grew up on a farm, and if you didn't can it or you didn't get it put in the freezer, you didn't have it in the winter and that's one of those things that's just a natural part of life. And so when things are forced or grown out of season or then trucked in, they have a more significant environmental impact versus just being more thoughtful with your purchasing and I love that about the Coop. I feel like the Coop is always very thoughtful.

And I'm just curious to know with all of your experience around canning, what is the biggest obstacle for the average layperson to overcome to get into canning?

There is some equipment that you need to purchase so there's an upfront cost and then I would say determination because it doesn't always work the first time. So it's great. You can read a recipe. You can follow a recipe. You can make it happen. But we do offer canning lessons which help with some of those tips and tricks. Things my grandma taught me 30 years ago that will make it easier for you to know if you're doing it right. And that's a great thing for us in the off-season because I love to spread knowledge. If you want to learn how to garden or you want to learn how to can, any of those things, you're free to check out our website because we do make it much easier for you to understand the processes associated with that.

Can you mention that website?

Oh, sure. It's parmeleehomesteadcreations.com.

And that's parmeleehomesteadcreations.com. We'll make sure people will have that in the Show Notes. But I'm glad you shared that because it would seem like the wintertime would be the best time to train people on canning and how to preserve things so that when the summertime comes around, you are off to the races.

You're ready to go. It's not a huge upfront cost. There are maybe four or five pieces of equipment that you really need to have. But say you want to learn how to make spaghetti sauce, well, then there's certain equipment that's specific to tomatoes that you would need. But however, a lot of what I do, because we do have several freezers available to us, is I freeze my tomatoes in the summer so I have tomatoes to make salsa year-round. So we do a two-fold system that is grown on our property, and then we go ahead and pull out the ingredients that we need to make the products.

Would it surprise you to know that Ozark Natural Foods, the Coop is the largest and only food Coop in the state of Arkansas?

The largest does not surprise me but only does. That's impressive.

A lot of people don't know that. It's just a little nugget of information for those of you that are listening. And I don't say that to boast, I just say that it is important what Ozark Natural Foods has been able to do since 1971. They have made a difference. It started out with just a handful of folks, and now with more than 13,000 and a half members, the Coop continues to grow and continues to remain a viable source of food and a viable place for you to shop on a regular basis to get all the groceries that you need knowing that when you walk through the doors of the Coop that you're going to be provided with the highest quality food available in the area.

That's my favorite part. Like, you never have to worry about quality at the Coop. It’s always high.

So talk to me a little bit about now that you have stepped out into the realm of entrepreneurship and is trying your hand at it and actually having some success. You've been involved with a program called Curate, which the Coop has actually been involved with. The Coop has had Curate come in and host a couple of events where a lot of the people that were going through the Coop, the Curate cohort for, I think, that was for the spring, the most recent one was spring of 2022. They all came and set up their shop right there at the Coop and shared. There was a bakery represented, somebody that makes popcorn. There was a person that makes teas, that makes these amazing teas from Asami teas. I believe they're now in the Coop. What was your experience like with Curate?

It was amazing. We all came together for one in-person late summer and early fall and then we met weekly virtually, and then last week was our wrap-up celebration and business pitch presentation. Kim runs an amazing program. It's really wonderful. And there were ten businesses with a food and beverage lens. So we all were coming from the same place and navigating the same systems. There were some bigger businesses and there were some smaller businesses. There was one that had been in business for like ten years and was looking to revamp. Tommy from Bark Boy Chocolate Company makes bark. We both are micro businesses. So it’s just the two of us in our small businesses working the farmers’ market circuit. So there were people in all sorts of different stages but we all had that community of food and beverage. And then we shared different ideas and talked about growing our businesses resourcefully and being able to fill in these niche markets being able to grow in a way that we were really resourceful. You need to be able to provide the product where the need is. So, where can you find your niche as you grow? And so, it was an amazing program. It was good. I would definitely recommend it to growing businesses.

Biggest takeaway from that program that you participated in?

One of the instructors, Philip, gave us some worksheets that made it much easier to track your expenses per recipe. So I had something similar to that, but this allows you to just plug in numbers. Because when I run out of tomatoes then we will be sourcing tomatoes. And so the price, whether you grow your own or you have to source them, is very different. Because when you grow your own you don't take into account all of that labor cost. So those formulas have been really helpful in being able to effectively create a wholesale price. Up until this point, we've really just been retailing directly to consumers, and so, as we move into that wholesale space, this was a huge thing for us to be able to adapt to where your ingredients are coming from and how to actively accurately price. So that way you're not just giving away all of your hard work.

So that means technically you could walk into Coop into the Produce Section and look at the pricing on stuff and factor in or figure out what it would cost you to produce whatever fruit or vegetable you were looking at that time. Well, that's exciting. What would you tell or say to someone that was new to the area about why the Coop would be a great place for them to shop and to just get to know better?

So I always recommend the Coop because it's local and that is a big deal to me. I think that supporting each other, supporting your neighbors, and that accountability piece is just a real part of farm life. So when you have a rural upbringing, you're taking care of your neighbors, you're checking on your neighbors, and I think that's something that the Coop brings to city life, because there is, yes, you're supporting your local farmer, but there's more to that. You can get to know your farmers. There are classes. There are events, and there are things you can participate in. And knowing where your food comes from is a huge part of your life. Like you eat three times a day, if not more. So knowing where that's coming from, that's big.

You've certainly laid it out. So I guess you've been here almost a decade. Do you miss Ames?

Yeah, a lot. Just to be honest, it's much easier to garden where the soil is rich. [RW - We have rich soil here in Arkansas]. You just have to make it. If you keep composting, it'll be good. My mom is still there, so I think I miss the people probably more than I miss the location. I'll tell you, I do not miss winter, not even a little. [RW - Our winters are definitely mild]. Definitely better here. I even like the summers. I enjoy the heat. I love Arkansas, it's so beautiful. I love the climate which is more temperate and that we still have all four seasons. So the Ozarks are just a beautiful part of the country and obviously, I'm not leaving. It's been ten years. I'm not going home.

Well, we're certainly glad you're here and we appreciate you sharing just a little snippet of your experience with the Coop and what that's meant for you. I'd like to think that, yes, we could lay claim to Ames being the inspiration for why you started the canning business, but I'd like to think that it was really the Coop that pushed you over the edge and said, you know what, pandemic or not, we're going to start this business and we're going to start canning some amazing food and share it with the public.

I love it. That's perfect.

That's great. Well, Becky Parmelee, thank you so much for joining us here on the Coop Podcast. We really appreciate that. If anybody wants to reach out to you what's the best way for them to connect with you?

Online. You'll find all of our information on my website, which is parmeleehomesteadcreations.com, or you can email me at info@parmeleehomesteadcreations.com.

Well, there you have it. Well, we appreciate you. Thank you so much for coming out and joining us on the podcast today.

Thank you so much.

Well, we appreciate you folks taking the time to learn more about Ozark Natural Foods, the Coop. This podcast was developed to highlight a community created more than 50 years ago with a focus on the love of food that is good for us and our planet. We have plenty of stories to tell, so stay tuned for more. I'm your host, Randy Wilburn, and we'll see you back here soon.

Thanks for tuning in to the Ozark Natural Foods, The Coop podcast. Whether you are new to the area and looking for a healthy grocery store or you've been here for ages but didn't know the whole story about Ozark Natural Foods, the Coop, this podcast is one of the best places to start. For more information about the Coop, please visit our website at onf.coop to learn more. That's onf.coop@ozarknaturalfoods, the Coop. We mean it when we say keeping it local since 1971.