Cottage food business is sweet for Emily McCune

Emily McCune’s baked goods, sold through her Sugar High Bakery and Confections business, are special.

(I can attest to that! She made the spiced aronia berry galette for our Local Growers Meal! DEEEEEE-lish!)

Not only are the cookies, cakes, desserts and treats made with her personal care in her own kitchen, Emily uses mostly locally produced and sourced ingredients.

A local baker using local ingredients

Several of her pantry staples are locally sourced year-round including organic/unlbeached all purpose and whole wheat flours, pastured hog lard, eggs and more.

Even the aronia berries in the galette were local! A grower in nearby Underwood, MN reached out to her asking fi she was interested in his aronia berry harvest.

“Of course I bought about 20 pounds from him and then focused enterely on the aronia bery for a couple of weeks,” she said. “That’s how I prefer to do business. I source my products form area growers, farmers markets and otehr sustainable farms in Otter Tail County, in general. I source products both for my business and for personal consumption.”

Most of the meats she consumes comes from Cornerstone Farm in Henning, MN. It’s where she also sources eggs, pastured hog lard and a “mountain” of produce from their farm during the growing season. But she also has a large network of local growers she reaches out to for products and ingredients.

She made many of the grower connections while serving as a vendor coordinator for the Fergus Falls Farmers Market in 2013. Her position was made possible through an internship as she was completing the sustainable food production program at Minnesota State Community and Technical College in Fergus Falls.

The program gave its students a wide range of sustainable agriculture knowledge and skills. She learned to drive a small tractor, to fence and to handle livestock plus grow plants. Through the courses she took, Emily grew in her understanding of sustainable production and food systems.

A family connection with food preparations

She already had respect for good, local foods, really, thanks to her Uncle Johnny. It was Uncle Johnny and her grandfather who raised Emily and her siblings after her mother died. Johnny was a trained culinary chef and Emily was a very willing student. He taught her to make a white sauce when she was just 10 and how to make a basic biscuit recipe. To Emily that recipe was an important one. It was the base for Johnny’s famous strawberry shortcake!

He taught her many skills surrounding self-sufficiency including composting and how to grow vegetables and flowers.

“I am eternally grateful for my relationship with my uncle Johnny and for all he taught me,” she said.

Even though he now lives in Texas, the two keep in touch regularly. And she uses his recipes often. It was his cookie recipes she used for her Christmas cookie collections. He shared grandpa’s family famous marshmallow walnut fudge.

And she makes all the goodies from her kitchen?

Yes.

But how?

No brick and mortar business

It’s true that Emily has no brick and mortar business, but she is registered and certified as a cottage food producer. The MInnesota Legislature established the program. To take part in it, Emily had to complete an extensive course, she said. She is able to produce 100 percent of her products in her home and sell direct-to-consumer and at community events like pop-up bakeries and faremrs markets. She cannot, however, sell wholesale or ship her products. While the program exempts her food handler’s licensing, there are limitations both revenue- and product-wise.

“But it works for me - for now,” she said.

She “advertises” her goodies through her Sugar High Bakery and Confections Facebook page. Customers and inquire about her offerings via messenger.

Another part of her business was born out of her life experiences.

Emily grew up in Riverside, CA before moving to the Midwest when she was 10 after her mom’s death. After graduating from high school, she joined the Army and spent the next 10 years bouncing from Oregon, California and Pennsylvania before moving to Fergus Falls, MN in January of 2011. She moved here to be a full-time nanny for her (then) two-year-old nephew, she said.

Throughout her 20s, she worked in the natural/organic food industry, she said. She became immersed in sustainable/local/organic food systems and worked mostly in natural foods developing and nurturing her knowledge of what “good, real, organic food” meant.

When she wasn’t taking care of her nephew, she was attending the sustainable food program courses at the college. And that led to her connections with local growers.

During that time, Emily experienced a traumatic event that led later to a diagnosis of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. That condition, coupled with an alcohol and drug addiction she’s battled for most of her adult life, brought Emily to check herself into an outpatient treatment program. Once she gained more balance in her life, Emily turned to baking as a healthy coping mechanism. While it kept her distracted and focused, she was also nurturing her lifelong love for baking.

“I began bringing cookies to an NA meeting and people began requesting them for purchase,” she said. “One thing led to another and, fast forward to today, I have an established successful cottage bakery business right here in Fergus Falls.”

In her recovery, Emily said it just didn’t sit right that she was taking anti-depressants to deal with anxiety so she began researching other items that could help. That research included cannabis medicine. Through the course of her research, she started making cannabis edibles for her own personal consumption with her medicine.

“Once I realized how effective they were, “ she said, “I extensively researched producing legal-for-all hemp-derived cannabis medicine because i thought it would be wonderful if I could start infusing my bakery goods with it and offer them to our community. And, well, as they say, the rest is history.”

She makes both infused and non-infused baked goods. (The galette was non-infused, btw)

The 2018 Farm Bill legalized the cultivate/consume/market of hemp both statewide and federally, she said. Emily sources hemp flowers used in her cannabutter infusings (aka CBD flower) from a hemp farm in the county. Her distillate infusions, like gummies, candies and more, are sourced from an organic hemp farm in Oregon.

“All of my standards and philosophies when it comes to running this bakery serve themselves across the board and my menu,” she added. “Regardless of whether it’s a cannabis infusion or not, I still make everything from scratch and use whole food, real ingredients and everything is small batch.”