Inspiring New Food Businesses in Sitka

Sitka Food Business Innovation Contest helps local entrepreneurs get started

It’s a rainy Saturday in late September and the Castaway food cart is sitting in the back of a parking lot next to the Alaska Native Brotherhood Founders Hall, where the last Sitka Farmers Market of the summer is taking place. Customers stand in line, ordering Cubano pork (from North Pole, Alaska) sandwiches with salad and plantain chips, or pozole, a soup of pork, hominy, and chilis, that suits the day.

Two members of the Sitka Local Foods Network, the nonprofit that sponsors the market, wait for the crowd of customers to thin, then they approach the food cart with a basket of goodies. Castaway, a new business this summer, is the selected winner of the market’s Table of the Day Award. Castaway owner Brittany Dumag and her mother, Kathy Dumag, receive an apron, sweatshirt, t-shirt, some local Sitka-grown produce, plus some Alaska Grown products from other parts of the state.

But six months earlier, Castaway was just an idea. Brittany Dumag wanted to start a food business and all she had was an idea and a couple of friends and husband willing to help her in her dream. In April, Dumag was one of the winners of the second annual Sitka Food Business Innovation Contest, an event sponsored by the Sitka Local Foods Network to encourage Sitka-based entrepreneurs to use local foods in their businesses.

Dumag and her Castaway food truck won the start-up business category in the contest, with Tamara Kyle’s Sitka Sauers fermented foods business winning in the established business category. Both won $1,500 to help their businesses. Twelve-year-old Abby Ward also received a special $250 award created by Sitka Local Foods Network for her Sitka Seasonings spice blend.

“I think where this contest was most helpful was not monetarily, but in having the support of the community,” Dumag said. “We had a lot of media support on websites and Facebook, and the newspaper photographer took our photo. This gets you known, and it definitely should be highlighted to future contest entrants.”

In her original plan, Dumag planned to sell rockfish tacos at Castaway. But, even in a commercial fishing community, she had difficulty getting the numbers to pencil out. So she changed her menu and started ordering pork from North Pole. Dumag also spent part of her summer trying to find the best spot for her food cart, which her husband and his friends built. She started out at the Fortress of the Bear, located about seven miles from downtown Sitka, then moved to being in front of the AC Lakeside grocery store. In addition to the Sitka Farmers Markets on various Saturdays, she also set up at the Fourth of July booths, the Rock the Dock for the Tongass music event in August, at an ice cream social outside an elementary school, and at Brew Fest on Alaska Day.

“There are a lot of zoning issues about where you can be, but we hope to be more consistent this summer,” Dumag said. “I learned quite a bit this year.”

Kyle’s summer wasn’t quite as successful, mainly because she developed an allergy issue to cabbage that created a histamine reaction so she couldn’t handle her ferments without breaking out in hives. She bought equipment to make processing the cabbage easier, but even with that she had to shut it down. Kyle ended up refunding part of her prize money back to the Sitka Local Foods Network, but remains a supporter of the contest and may enter again in a future year. She said the biggest lesson she learned was there are always bumps along the road and to be flexible.

“I think it’s a fantastic idea to motivate people who have entrepreneurial ideas and to push them to go ahead with them,” Kyle said. “Having the kid enter was the greatest thing, and if the contest had been around when I was 17 and helping my grandmother in her catering business, I think I would have entered. I want food security.”

The Sitka Local Foods Network has had a lower table fee for youth vendors at the Sitka Farmers Market for three years, and Ward has had a booth every year while she’s in Sitka. This summer, she wanted to do more than selling baked goods at her table, so she developed a spice rub for red meat and one for fish.

“I wanted to get started in my seasoning business,” said Ward, who also had a table outside Harrigan Centennial Hall on cruise ship days. “We use these for meats, to flavor them up, and I thought the grant could help me grow my business. Because this is my first time, I’m just learning how to do it.”