Mandy Anderson, co-founder of Lake Effect Kitchen in Grand Haven, Mich., talks about the ghost kitchen she and her partner started that was inspired by their children with autism and continues to provide learning and professional opportunities for differently abled individuals. Nick Carter - Host (Market Wagon) (00:00): Welcome to More Than A Mile. Today, you're going to hear from Mandy Anderson, she co-founded Lake Effect Kitchen in Michigan. It's a catering company specifically designed to employ young adults with different abilities like her own son. Listen on to hear how it's going. Nick Carter - Host (Market Wagon) (00:17): Welcome to More Than A Mile, a local food podcast from Market Wagon focused on connecting you to local food through farmer stories from across America. I'm Nick Carter, your host, a farmer and CEO and co-founder of Market Wagon. We are your online farmers market with a mission to enable food producers to thrive in their local and regional markets. Food is so much more than just nutrients and calories. It's actually the fabric that holds us together. And I look forward to crafting a generational quilt of farmer stories and experiences, the victories and challenges of individuals, families, and teams doing their part to help democratize food in America. Thanks for joining me for this episode of More Than A Mile, and thank you for buying local food. It's one critical step in making an investment in food for future generations. Nick Carter - Host (Market Wagon) (01:09): Well, my guest today is Mandy Anderson from Lake Effect Kitchen. And I'm looking forward to hearing your story, Mandy. Mandy Anderson (Lake Effect Kitchen) (01:17): Thanks for having me. Nick Carter - Host (Market Wagon) (01:17): Thanks for joining me. So, Lake Effect Kitchen--you're from the beach side of Michigan. Grand Haven, is that correct? Mandy Anderson (Lake Effect Kitchen) (01:26): Yep. Sunny Grand Haven. Nick Carter - Host (Market Wagon) (01:28): Okay. Are you from there originally? Mandy Anderson (Lake Effect Kitchen) (01:30): No, I'm originally from the Metro Detroit area. I moved over to Grand Haven in 2000. My spouse had gotten a job over here in this area and I had actually fallen in love with West Michigan when I was a college student at Hope College a few years prior to that. The beach is beautiful, people are friendly and welcoming, and it's just a nice kind of relaxing sort of vibe. Nick Carter - Host (Market Wagon) (01:54): Do you think it's yeah, easier or better to start a small business in a smaller town? Or no? Mandy Anderson (Lake Effect Kitchen) (02:00): I think there's challenges either way. A bigger city might have more customers for opportunity, but a smaller town--they reach out more, I think, and really try to support small businesses because we know more people, we're more connected since there's--since it's a small town kind of feel. Nick Carter - Host (Market Wagon) (02:19): Easier to be connected in the community and have the community support you? Mandy Anderson (Lake Effect Kitchen) (02:23): That's right. Nick Carter - Host (Market Wagon) (02:24): Yeah. I'm a small town kid and now I live in a big city, so I'm always curious. So what sparked you and Aaron to start Lake Effect Kitchen? Mandy Anderson (Lake Effect Kitchen) (02:33): So Aaron and I each have a child on the autism spectrum. We served for five or six years together on the Board of Autism Society of West Shore, which is now called Autism Support of West Shore, our local autism advocacy organization. So we worked together to provide support for parents living with--and people living with autism. We were working together on all kinds of like family activities, but also trying to focus on the transition age student. So your older teenage student exiting the school system or just exiting high school and needing some kind of next steps: job skills, training, paid employment. A lot of them aren't working when they're still in high school, which isn't ideal. We need to get them out into the workforce and give them those solid job opportunities. So we started looking around for what, how we could support them and what we could do personally to, you know, bring that to life. And we stumbled on a catering business for sale. We thought we'd take the plunge and just kind of go for it. Nick Carter - Host (Market Wagon) (03:43): So Lake Effect Kitchen began with buying an existing catering business? Mandy Anderson (Lake Effect Kitchen) (03:49): Yeah. We bought a facility that had been renovated into a kitchen and so it was in 2017 that we got started. And so the, the business that was here was doing meal prep and catering much like we're doing now. And we just sort of changed the focus a bit to be hiring and training people that have intellectual disabilities, including autism and other types of disabilities. Nick Carter - Host (Market Wagon) (04:16): So that's a clear focus in a direction for your company is being able to teach...
