Kuna specialty foods maker snags limelight on new Amazon.com’s gourmet food site.

Sandstone Farms is known for its pickled products, especially its asparagus and beans. The company is also planning to offer a variety of fine wines in the near future.

Kathy Hansen’s storefront just got a whole lot bigger.

Her Sandstone Farms in Kuna is one of 300 gourmet and specialty food companies to land a spot on Amazon.com’s new online gourmet food store.

Ken Dey
The Idaho Statesman

“I think it’s going to be huge,” Hansen said of the chance for worldwide exposure. “We’re very excited.”

Nabbing a place on Amazon.com is the latest big break for the small company that started when Hansen began selling her pickled vegetables and wine jellies at farmer´s markets just a few years ago.

• Sandstone Farms http://www.sandstonefarms.com/

• Amazon.com – new gourmet food Web site http://www.amazon.com/gp/browse.html/ref=gf_special_tab/104-1591648-2963950?node=3370831

Since 1997, when the company was founded, Hansen has been working to grow her business by going to gourmet food shows and seeking out distributors for her line of products.

Today Hansen says her products are available in nearly every state, but she´s hoping that the Amazon.com exposure will increase the reach of her products even further.

She still hasn´t been able to land a distribution deal with big players like Boise´s own Albertsons Inc., and she´d also like to expand her product line to Canada and, eventually, Mexico.

Hansen´s big break with Amazon.com happened during a visit to one of those gourmet food shows. When the company participated in the Fancy Food Show in New York City last June, Amazon officials were there looking for companies, and they liked the products Hansen was offering.

As part of the agreement, Hansen said the company has to pay Amazon a commission of between 10 and 20 percent on each sale.

Hansen said her goal is to double her company´s Internet sales by being featured on Amazon. Right now she does about 30 percent of all sales on the Internet.

Those products, which started in 1997 with pickled asparagus spears, include a full line of pickled vegetables from baby carrots and corn to pickled garlic, beans and mushrooms. The company also sells a full line of wine jellies.

Sandstone Farms is the only Idaho company to be included in Amazon´s new venture, but state commerce officials say the Kuna company´s big break could ultimately help other Idaho companies.

“That´s a tremendous amount of exposure for Idaho,” said Georgia Smith, information officer for the Idaho Department of Commerce. “It helps build a reputation for the state of being progressive and innovative as well as building a strong awareness of our agricultural products.”

Smith said Sandstone will also benefit from being associated with one of the biggest names in online sales.

“You can´t buy that type of media exposure,” Smith said. “It comes with a level of credibility that´s absolutely invaluable.”

Food Network came first

This isn´t Sandstone Farms´ first shot at national exposure.

Two years ago the company was featured in a segment on the Food Network, which caused a big spike in sales.

“After that aired, we sold more in one month than we had in the previous year,” Hansen said.

The response from the Food Network caught the company off guard.

Hansen said she was out of town at the time and hadn´t been told when the program would air. A friend called her to tell her it was on. It wasn´t long after that before the company phones started ringing.

“We had to call in family and friends to help because the phones just went insane,” Hansen said.

So far the response to the Amazon listing hasn´t been quite as dramatic. Hansen said some orders have been coming in, but it´s been sluggish.

She attributes that to some of the technical difficulties Amazon is having with the site that just started running on Friday, Nov. 7.

Hansen says the Amazon listing is an opportunity to grow her business even further. She´s hoping to get the product into more stores, including Albertsons.

Humble beginnings

Today Sandstone Farms employs six full-time people and has revenues of about $1.5 million. Sandstone products are distributed to nearly every state. Not bad for a company that Hansen never had any plans to start.

The roots of the company begin with asparagus.

In 1995 Hansen, who used to be a real estate agent, and her husband, local developer Larry Hansen, moved to Kuna from Boise and bought 60 acres.

They wanted to do something with the acreage, but weren´t sure what. A friend told them about a national food company that was looking to contract with farmers to plant asparagus.

Hansen said they took the company up on its offer and planted 20 acres of the vegetable.

The company, however, decided not to honor its contract, which left Hansen with no buyers for the asparagus. Fortunately it takes asparagus a while to mature as a crop, so Hansen chose not to even pick the asparagus the first year. The second year they picked about 5,000 pounds and needed to find a use for it.

She had always purchased and canned asparagus and made her wine jellies for family and friends, so Hansen decided that was one way to sell the crop.

“We needed to do something with the asparagus,” Hansen said. “We figured we would sell it locally at farmers´ markets or some specialty food stores, but we never dreamed of taking it anywhere else.”

But as the product starting catching on, Hansen added more vegetables to her line and started expanding her reach by going to food shows and seeking out distributors.

She tries to use Idaho grown vegetables for most of her products, but she has had to go out of state to find suppliers for things like baby corn and carrots. She has also kept all the products 100 percent natural, which has been a big selling point for natural food stores.

Hansen also credits her success to finding a niche.

It also hasn´t hurt that her products have been well-received by critics.

The company´s hot tequila garlic was recently awarded the “Golden Chili” award for first place in the Chile Pepper 2004 Fiery Food Challenge put on by Chile Pepper Magazine.

Although her pickling and jelly recipes are secret, Hansen said there´s really nothing magical about them.

“It´s totally by taste,” Hansen said. “I get an idea and start playing with it.”

Keeping the momentum

If the company´s spot on Amazon.com takes off, Hansen said she isn´t worried about keeping up with demand. She said the company has the ability to gear up quickly to meet big orders.

She´s hopeful that she can keep the company growing steadily. Her next goal is to have the product distributed in Canada and Mexico.

The key to that growth is making sure her product line is always changing.

“We try to introduce at least one new product each year,” Hansen said.

A company can´t afford to have just a few products and not make any changes, Hansen says.

Hansen said distributors at the major food shows every year seek out the companies with new products.

Next year will likely be another big year for the company. Hansen said they´re moving to a new location in Kuna — at the site of the current Kings store.

The move will increase the company´s space from 2,000 square feet to 8,000 square feet, which will allow for a bigger retail store and some much-needed production space.

The company´s current location will remain and be turned into Hansen´s next venture — a winery. Hansen plans to open Silver Trail Winery, named after the historic trail from Silver City to Boise that crosses her property. The new winery will offer eight varieties of wine.

Although Hansen remains fairly low-key about her move to Amazon.com and the company´s future, others applaud her success.

“We´re tickled to death by it,” said Dale Peterson, executive director of Buy Idaho. “Any time Idaho companies can sell more, it provides jobs and money for our economy.”

To offer story ideas or comments, contact Ken Dey
[email protected] or 377-6428

http://www.idahostatesman.com/Business/story.asp?ID=54131