In Joy Baking Co. and the Local Food Movement

The local foods movement and the local business movement generally have gained some fairly significant ground lately. I've had a ringside view of this in a microcosmic sense working with my local clients. My hometown of Colorado Springs and especially the adjacent small town of Manitou Springs offer just the kind of quirky, soulful, peculiar (in the sense of specificity more than the connotation of weirdness), and local-orientation that is tailor-made for local food companies.[ibimage==31592==Original==none==self==ibimage_align-left]

No local start-up better typifies these things that In Joy Baking Co. (http://www.injoyglutenfree.com), which is nestled at the home of its creators, Jillian and Chris Dwyer, just off Manitou Avenue (pictured above).

[ibimage==31581==Original==none==self==ibimage_align-center]These two (the Dwyers) are, to use an arguably over-used word, that I think is justified here, geniuses. They just "get" that certain something about making things like that that others (read: myself, at least!) simply do not. I have seen them make European-style sipping chocolates that taste like some crazy mix of some kind of chai latte, spiced...something (I don't know what), dark and sultry chocolate madness that is just raw happiness in each micro-slurp.

Then there are the truffles... The truffles are unreal. They taste like some sort of aliens have landed and given us a variety of new technologies and one of them is a new method for making chocolate... In all seriousness, I've not tasted anything like these. Passersby, or would-be passersby, at a recent chocolate demonstration show at the Broadmoor (the world famous hotel based here in the Springs) could not believe them either. The samples placed for the benefit of attendees were snapped up as quickly as the sipping chocolates.

What I like, and what ties In Joy Baking Co. to the larger movement toward small, local business, is that they make their products locally, and is carried locally. And, that said, they've harnessed the power of the interwebs so that their stuff can be ordered from anywhere in the country.[ibimage==31582==Original==none==self==ibimage_align-center]

(Check out the the In Joy Baking Co. Pinterest account. For example, click here)

For more information about the history of the local food movement, Michigan State University has published a number of useful studies. This page for the above link offers a number of good resources for learning more.