Mike's Famous Michigan Bean Dip deals with how to make more

For Mike Kruck, maker of Mike’s Famous Michigan Bean Dip, it’s decision time.

The bean dip uses Michigan pinto beans, gets its commercial mojo in a regional incubator for food entrepreneurs, the Can-Do Kitchen, and is on the brink of becoming a big deal. Now Kruck is weighing how he will get it there.

This week he’s meeting with a large grocery store chain, one of two with national reach that have expressed interest in his bean dip. That success comes on the heels of Mike’s Famous dip being chosen last fall from among 100 contestants in the "Making it in Michigan" trade show. His prize was placement on the shelves of Westborn Market, which operates three specialty retail stores in suburban Detroit.

This is the same dip that started as something Kruck created and took to neighborhood get-togethers. Quickly, people started requesting that he bring it whenever he could. That makes his bean dip "famous" in some circles, Kruck says with a smile in his voice. (And this writer can report that at a potluck just last weekend two different people came with Mike’s dip.)

"I’m not an entrepreneur or marketing person by trade," Kruck says. "I’ve had to learn a lot of things through trial and error."

The decision facing Kruck is how to make more dip and maintain the taste and freshness he currently offers. He is producing almost the maximum of what he can at the Can-Do Kitchen, about 150 pounds a week. The equipment he would need to buy to produce larger quantities of the dip are almost prohibitively expensive for the therapist who still has his day job in private practice.

For more people to be able to partake of his dips, which come in mild, medium and hot and spicy, Kruck also needs to tweak the recipe to extend its three-week shelf-life to six weeks.

He has been advised to find what is known as a co-packer, a company that takes his recipe and creates it in larger batches than he can and packages it. But Kruck, who has built his business on the freshness of his ingredients still is considering his best options.

Regardless of whether he finds a way to obtain the equipment he needs or goes with a company that makes it for him, one thing that will not change is Kruck’s commitment to a business dedicated to social responsibility.

On the label of each container of dip is his pledge that 5 percent of each purchase goes to promote positive social change.

"I feel strongly about that," Kruck says.

Writer: Kathy Jennings, Second Wave
Source: Mike Kruck, Clara’s Kitchen, LLC

Mike’s Famous Michigan Bean Dip is available locally at D&W on Parkview Ave., Irving’s Market, Natural Health Center, People’s Food Co-op, Sawall Health Foods, Tiffany’s Wine and Spirit Shoppe and Country Way Natural Foods  in Otsego. It is also served at Bronson Hospital Café and Legends Sports Bar in Paw Paw.
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