Entrepreneur
Chris Baggott shares his Start-up Know-hows
Local, Fresh, Relevant BY KAREN KENNEDY PHOTOGRAPHY BY MICHAEL TAMBASCO
T
he food business is booming— and it’s changing.
Chris Baggott is dressed to get dirty in his denim work shirt, jeans and boots. As we sit drinking coffee in the cozy farmhouse at Tyner Pond Farm in Greenfield, his phone rings relentlessly and he frequently consults his Apple watch mid-sentence, interrupting himself. But he never loses track of what he was saying. His focus is laser-sharp, his energy is palpable and his ideas about the food business tumble out of him like Cheerios into a cereal bowl.
Just a Few Ideas...
Fresh and local produce and meat dropped off in your neighborhood you and your neighbors can share? He’s doing it. Perfectly timed and piping hot dinners delivered to your doorstep with the ease of ordering an Uber? Done and done. Wish you could enjoy freshly frozen corn from a farm 10 miles away in the dead of winter? Go look for a label that says Husk in your local grocery store. Ever heard of sous vide? Maybe you’ve never tried to do it, but you’ll want to after you realize you can have it delivered right to your house all ready to cook. Think you might enjoy a truly local hot dog accompanied by freshly cut fries from local potatoes in a fast-food setting? Visit Baggott’s farm-to-curb restaurant, The Mug, in Greenfield.
Solving the Big Problem If you have a food dream, Chris Baggott probably has an idea about how to make it come true. (More likely, he’s already doing it.) After prospering for years in the ethereal world of software innovation— he was the co-founder of ExactTarget—he could have rested on his laurels and counted his piles of money for the rest of his days. But instead, he’s off to meet a pig farmer on the other side of the county as soon as we’re done chatting. Why? “I like big problems,” Baggott said with an impish grin. “The quality of our food supply is a big problem.” Baggott is working steadfastly to solve that problem in so many different ways it’s hard to keep up, but suffice it to say he’s creating an environment in Central Indiana where small food start-ups might 14
edible INDY food start-up boot camp issue 2016
have a better chance than they would just about anywhere else in the country.
Choice and Convenience “There’s a trickle-down effect when it comes to educating consumers,” Baggott said. “Starbucks taught us how to drink coffee. Sam Adams taught us about craft beer. There was a time when we were all perfectly happy with Maxwell House, Gallo Wine and Bud Light. But these large producers gave rise to the wave of local coffee shops, wineries and microbreweries we’re devoted to today. So we’ve become coffee and beer snobs, but many of us will still choose the cheapest pork chop in the case, even though we have no idea where it came from or how it was handled. We need to create the demand for the same quality in our food. If the price is the same or only slightly more, and the quality is superior, why wouldn’t we all choose it? It’s a no-brainer.” “Americans want two things: choice and convenience. So if we can create the technology that gives them both, but on a local scale, everyone wins. Indiana consumes $17.8 billion worth of food every year; shouldn’t that food come from Indiana?” Baggott is using his expertise in the software world to create technology that solves the biggest problem anyone with a food start-up faces: distribution. Through platforms such as FarmersMarket.com and a coalition called Farm League, he’s creating what he calls a “coopetition.” He’s providing a virtual farmers’ market in which anyone—whether it’s your Aunt Susie, who’s been pickling her own beets for years in her basement; a pig farmer who makes the best Italian sausage anyone has ever tasted; or a grower of pea shoots—can hawk their wares in front of a larger audience than just the once-a-week-inthe-summer local farmers’ market.
Bringing Food Start-ups to a Broader Scale In addition to helping raise demand and awareness on a broader scale, he’s also lending support directly to food start-ups through projects such as ClusterTruck and formerly at Husk (the latter was in
