Genuine Local of Laconia is NH SBA’s 2023 Small Business Champion of the Year
The name says it all. ‘Genuine Local’ is providing budding food and beverage entrepreneurs with a unique opportunity to bring their products to market through education, compliance and technical assistance, and co-packaging services at a level accessible to the smallest of small business owners. They do all of this because of their passion for local farms and food and beverage production and their genuine desire to help people fulfill their personal path to entrepreneurship. This is why they were named SBA’s 2023 NH Small Business Champion.
Mary Macdonald, Co-owner and Co-founder of Genuine Local in Laconia, candidly describes the company as a "hobby gone wrong." What started in 2006 as a family team barbeque competition quickly took on a life of its own.
Mary and her husband Gavin were soon venturing into catering and then began selling their popular barbeque sauces. In October 2015 they leased a 1600 sq ft building in Meredith and started transforming it into NH's only specialty food production accelerator. A few years later, Genuine Local outgrew this space and was in search of their forever home. By then Clarissa Macdonald had joined the team as a co-owner and was instrumental in business operations as Mary and Gavin worked to transform their new Laconia location.
With the ongoing support of Members First Credit Union (MFCU), Genuine Local found a perfect facility that checked all the boxes offering approximately 5000 sq ft of production space, 4000 sq ft of warehouse space, offices, and a meeting/training room. This allowed the company to offer four distinct production areas making it very flexible for their customers to customize their experience based on their individual needs.
The uniqueness of this company comes in its full array of services. All three owners are preventative control certified, trained in hazard analysis, FDA label compliance, and have completed two small business incubator programs. Together with their well-equipped facility, they provide customers with state-of-the-art production space, in-house labeling, pricing, packaging and production assistance, aggregated purchase power for ingredients and materials, and business development services needed for small food businesses to start and grow. Their core belief is that properly making and selling good food products should be easier and more accessible and a viable option for small-batch specialty food and beverage producers.
Genuine Local, like most food businesses, had challenges during the Covid 19 Pandemic. The SBA’s Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) allowed them to keep their team employed when circumstances prevented them from working and remote working was not an option. Genuine Local also utilized the Economic Injury Disaster Loan (EIDL) giving them the working capital needed to ensure that their services remained available to the small businesses they partner with during the uncertain times of the pandemic.
As part of its community-driven mission, the company refers to its diverse network as the Genuine Local Community (GLC). GLC is a collaboration of various partners and local businesses, including customers, Belknap County Conservation District, UNH Cooperative Extension, NH Food Alliance, Goldman Sachs 10,000 Small Businesses, and the NH Food Hub Network that work together to bring programming and resources to the community. The company partners with over 20 local farms
to extend the lifespan of their crops by transforming them into preserved or frozen foods adding another source of diversified income. “We believe in paying it forward," Mary states. "In our name, Genuine speaks to authenticity, the natural and the clean, while Local reflects our desire to support local businesses and have an impact on our community." For more information on Genuine Local Local Makers, Small Batch Co-Packing, Shared-Use Kitchen