Local East Lansing and Lansing Businesses Combining Resources

Lansing-based Bake N' Cakes and East Lansing's Green River Café are working together to maximize their resources and profits. Green River Café is using Bake N' Cakes ovens to make its organically grown bread rather than setting up its own expensive in-house baking system.

According to excerpts from the article:

Jim Jabara had all the ingredients for his bread, many of them locally grown and organic to boot. But there was one more thing the owner of the Green River Cafe in East Lansing needed: a place to bake it.

Across town, Jeff Johnson had the solution. His Bake N' Cakes ovens bake breads and other goods nearly every day, but not with the organic and locally grown ingredients Jabara's cafe is known for.

So, the restaurateur and the baker struck a deal.

"I go over and we do some baking together for Green River on occasion," said Jabara, who opened his cafe about a year ago, "and we also leave product with him."

Jabara and Johnson are working to help spread that spirit of camaraderie among area small-business owners and, in the process, helping to build more support for local wares.

Capital Area Local First, of which Johnson is president and Jabara is vice president, is one of several efforts brewing to encourage a locally focused economy. The new organization seeks to link small-business owners, while educating consumers about what's available locally.

Read the entire article here.