Michigan Products Go Global!

Feb. 15, 2015

AMERICAN SPOON FOODS

HQ: Petoskey - spoon.com

ESTABLISHED: 1982

WE MAKE: Artisinal fruit preserves and condiments

BEST-SELLING ITEMS: All sour cherry products, thimbleberry jam and elderberry jelly.

"The cherry products are incredibly popular," explained Spoon Foods’ Noah Marshall- Rashid. "And the others are things you can’t really find anywhere else."

FUN FACT: A whopping 50,000 pounds of peaches are hand-peeled and processed each year to make Spoon Foods’ Red Haven peach preserve.

OUR BIGGEST MARKET IS: "Still Michigan!"

WE ALSO SELL TO: All over the U.S., with a heavy concentration in Chicago and New York City.

OUR PRODUCTS HAVE BEEN SHIPPED AS FAR AWAY AS: Japan, South Korea and Dubai. Spoon Foods’ goods can also be found at international specialty retailer Dean & DeLuca.

WE CHOOSE TO STAY IN MICHIGAN BE- CAUSE: "As a kid, my father (Spoon Foods co-founder Justin Rashid) summered at a farm in Wildwood, 12 miles east of Petoskey. When it came time to figure out where to settle, he remembered what a wonderful childhood he’d had here, so that’s where he and my mother ended up, and that’s where Spoon Foods began."

KILWINS

HQ: Petoskey - kilwins.com

ESTABLISHED: 1947

WE MAKE: Original recipe chocolates, fudge and 44 flavors of ice cream

BEST-SELLING ITEMS: chocolate "tuttles" – nuts, caramel and chocolate all in one. (The word turtles is already trademarked in the candy biz).

FUN FACT: "Customers don’t realize that Kilwins is now a franchise," said director of marketing Jeff Hall. "They tell their visiting friends, "˜let me take you to my great local chocolate shop.’"

OUR BIGGEST MARKET IS: Florida is number one. Michigan is number two.

WE ALSO SELL TO: 96 stores in 22 states.

OUR PRODUCTS HAVE BEEN SHIPPED AS FAR AWAY AS: "As far west as Fort Collins, Colorado; as far east as Portsmouth, New Hampshire; and as far south as Key West, Florida."

WE CHOOSE TO STAY IN MICHIGAN BECAUSE: "Founders Don and Katie Kilwin actually started a bakery in the "˜40s, which transitioned into candy making later on. It’s a real homegrown success story – a local mom and pop store that made it big. But everything started here, so this is where our headquarters are."

STORMY KROMER

HQ: Ironwood - stormykromer.com

ESTABLISHED: 1903

WE MAKE: Distinctive winter wool hats with earflaps.

BEST-SELLING ITEMS: The Original Stormy Kromer – the first hat that the company produced – is still the most popular. "Stormy Kromer was actually a person. He was a baseball player turned railroad engineer," explained marketing manager Andrea Ludtke. "When he’d stick his head out of the window on the train to check the tracks, his hat would fly off. So his wife, Ida, designed a new hat with earflaps that pulled down over his ears and kept his hat on his head."

FUN FACT: In Minocqua, Wisconsin there’s currently a giant snowman wearing a size 98 Stormy Kromer hat (a normal hat size is a 7). "It’s huge and we made it especially for the snowman," Ludtke laughed.

OUR BIGGEST MARKET IS: Michigan, Wisconsin and Minnesota.

WE ALSO SELL TO: Across the U.S., via their website.

OUR PRODUCTS HAVE BEEN SHIPPED AS FAR AWAY AS: Western Europe and Japan.

WE CHOOSE TO STAY IN MICHIGAN BE- CAUSE: "Stormy Kromer was actually from Kaukauna, Wisconsin, but when Jacquart’s bought the Stormy Kromer brand, we brought it to Michigan. Our HQ is here because this is where owner Bob Jacquart grew up."

FOUR WINNS

HQ: Cadillac - fourwinns.com ESTABLISHED: 1962

WE MAKE: Powerboats, including sport boats and deck boats.

BEST-SELLING ITEMS: More than 40 models are currently offered, including various versions of the Horizon, Signature, SL and Vista.

FUN FACT: When you hear Four Winns, it’s easy to assume that the name is a play on the four winds: north, south, east and west. Instead, the company – which began as the Safe-T-Mate Boat Co. in the "˜60s – was acquired by four members of the Winn family in 1975, so it’s actually named after them.

OUR BIGGEST MARKET IS: Michigan boaters are big fans of Four Winns. The boats can be seen at virtually every dock in the state.

WE ALSO SELL TO: Four Winns has a global network of retailers and has snagged such international awards as 2012 European Powerboat of the Year.

OUR PRODUCTS HAVE BEEN SHIPPED AS FAR AWAY AS: Australia to Venezuela. Four Winns boats truly travel worldwide.

WE CHOOSE TO STAY IN MICHIGAN BECAUSE: Four Winns is now owned by Groupe Beneteau, a boat manufacturer based in Saint- Gilles-Croix-de-Vie, France. The company clearly knows a good thing when it sees it, which is why they’ve left the family-founded Four Winns headquartered in Michigan.

M-22

HQ: Leelanau - m22.com

ESTABLISHED: 2007

WE MAKE: Self-branded lifestyle apparel and accessories with an outdoorsy surfer dude theme. "We’re the cool tourist T-shirt for northern Michigan," said Nate Farran, director of operations.

BEST-SELLING ITEMS: M-22 stickers.

FUN FACT: They’re a fluke. They were the business with no plan – and no interest in even starting a business. A photo of kiteboarder (now company co-founder) Keegan Myers ended up on a magazine cover and people started asking where they could buy the T-shirt he was wearing. "We just wanted to make enough money to travel around and go kiteboarding," Farran said.

OUR BIGGEST MARKET IS: "Definitely tourists."

WE ALSO SELL TO: "The tourism sales mean that our products actually go across the U.S. It’s sweet being in another state and seeing a little piece of your Michigan town on somebody’s car bumper."

OUR PRODUCTS HAVE BEEN SHIPPED AS FAR AWAY AS: Argentina, Australia and Germany. "Lots to Germany," Farran added.

WE CHOOSE TO STAY IN MICHIGAN BECAUSE: "Because of friendship and local loyalty."

EAST JORDAN IRON WORKS

HQ: East Jordan - ejco.com

ESTABLISHED: 1883

WE MAKE: Molten iron designed and manufactured into items like fire hydrants, tree grates, manhole covers, drainage gates, airport and architectural castings and meter boxes.

BEST-SELLING ITEMS: There are a lot of manhole covers in the world and East Jordan Iron Works – nicknamed "EJ" – has manufactured a good portion of them.

FUN FACT: For all you fire hydrant collectors and aficionados, a website called firehydrant.org has a detailed photo page dedicated solely to EJ’s various fire hydrant designs.

OUR BIGGEST MARKET IS: Big cities and major metropolitan areas.

WE ALSO SELL TO: Customers of our 50 sales offices worldwide.

OUR PRODUCTS HAVE BEEN SHIPPED AS FAR AWAY AS: France, Australia, Ireland, Canada and Mexico.

WE CHOOSE TO STAY IN MICHIGAN BECAUSE: EJ was founded by William Malpass and his father-in-law Richard W. Round more than 130 years ago, with the initial aim of working with the logging industry. Even though EJ is now a massive company with four foundries, two of them overseas, it all started in East Jordan, so that’s where the corporate headquarters remain.