What does your business do?

Sweet Potato Snaps is a full-service pet snack processing and packaging company located in Coloma, Wisconsin, the heart of the State. It is designed to provide top-quality and healthy snack for pets created from sweet potatoes that were designated for waste. I worked for a sweet potato company and noticed the amount of waste created by the discarded potatoes. We have talked for a while how there is so much waste created by the discard of potatoes that, for one reason or another, are unacceptable to go to market. I started slicing and dehydrating them and sold them to local markets as pet snacks. In January 2019 with my partner, Mike Holley, I started my business. We initially are preparing and packaging our treats for retail and local home sales but expect to expand our customer base exponentially as our business develops and we construct an E-commerce website. We are committed to our customers and want to grow. process, package and deliver the highest quality most nutritious, natural pet treats in the marketplace.

How would you use the grant money?

If we are awarded the 20th edition Business Owners Idea Cafe grant, we will use the funding to help purchase a computer with fax, printer and software as well as a professionally designed and developed website and a comprehensive advertising and marketing strategy with implementation.

What would the grant enable you to do that you can't now?

If awarded this grant, I would be able to hire a web designer to create an online website to help get our name and product on the internet. We would potentially open our sales across the United States, and the world.

If Idea Cafe's Grant helps your biz reach greater success, how will you "pay it forward" to help others in some way?

As my company Sweet Potato Snaps grows, I will hire employees, both for the processing part of the company but also I will need employees to handle and manage the online sales to make sure our customers get the product in a timely manner.