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December 2005 Issue
Heartland Ingredients
Heartland Ingredients is a joint venture between FarmConnect, Michigan Edible Bean Cooperative (MEBC) and individual investors that produces and
markets gluten-free food products. You can learn a lot more information on this project by visiting the website at www.heartlandingredients.com or using
the link on the FarmConnect home page. If you haven't visited the website yet, I invite you to check it out and see what we have accomplished over the past year.
FarmConnect and Michigan Edible Bean Company (MEBC) have been
working together for several years to develop this project that provides great tasting, functional food products to Celiacs. Celiacs are people who have
Celiac Sprue disease which means that they cannot eat gluten. Gluten is a protein found in wheat, barley, and rye, so Celiacs must find foods that do not
contain wheat, oats, barley and rye flours or products made from them. Heartland Ingredients offers 7 different pasta products that are made from navy beans and corn under the Heartland's Finest label and three cereal products
marketed as CerOs in addition to premium navy and pinto bean flour in 1-pound and 2-pound packages.
We started selling the pasta to a single store in Detroit, MI about a year ago.
Today we are selling pasta and cereal in more than 90 retail stores in 30 states in the United States. We recently made our first shipment to a
customer in Singapore who will begin distributing the products in that country and we will begin working with a distributor in January, 2005 that services over 900 stores in the eastern United States.
We mill the pinto and navy beans at SoyLink, we make the pasta and cereal in a contract facility in southern Minnesota, we package and ship from our
facility in Crookston, MN and have the administrative and sales office in Ubly, Michigan.
Heartland Ingredients has been funded completely with membership dues,
matching grant funds from USDA, individual investors and in-kind services from the University of Minnesota Crookston, Northern Crops Institute at North
Dakota State University and Agricultural Utilization Research Insititute.
We talked about Heartland Ingredients at our annual meeting in March when
we handed out samples of the pasta. Additional stock was offered to FarmConnect members, MEBC members and outside investors. There is still
opportunity for additional investment. If you are interested you may contact us by email at farmconnect@farmconnect.com. Please state "Heartland
Ingredients investment interest" in the subject line of the email.
Heartland Ingredients is one of the projects we are working on and it
represents the types of activity FarmConnect is doing to find innovative ways to add value to farm products. To be included in these projects your annual
dues must be up-to-date. We are planning a FarmConnect annual meeting in March, prior to which we will be sending out statements for the annual dues
as well as other additional information. Without your dues we cannot continue to develop projects like these.
If your address or email has changed
please email the changes to us at farmconnect@farmconnect.com or you can call the FarmConnect office at 218-281-1752.
The FarmConnect office has moved.
Please note the new contact information given below.
Mailing address: Phone: 218-281-1752
PO Box 396 Fax: 218-281-1358
Crookston, MN 56716
Physical address:
1027 Fairfax Ave
Crookston, MN 56716
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