November 5Ć5 Night at Start Garden
Voting Closes:
November 18, 2024 11:59 pm
Impact
Funding from Start Garden would allow us to put a downpayment on machinery that would enable us to increase production by three times and reduce production time by at least 50%. We are currently able to produce 50 dozen tamales per hour and this would increase production to over 200 dozen per hour. With the added production capabilities, our goal is to add frozen, ready to reheat at home tamales to our product line for mail-order and retail sales, which would lead to increased revenue of nearly $84,000 in the first year. The funding would create the ability to build inventory for this new venture and make it possible to develop additional flavors. We would need to add 2-4 members to the āTamale Squad,ā our employee team, in the first year. This would be impactful for our city, Muskegon Heights, as it is economically underdeveloped and is experiencing negative job growth at higher rates than the national average.
What I'll do with $5,000
The machinery that we require to increase the production costs $40,000. The $5,000 grant would be used towards a downpayment for the equipment. The remainder will be financed through a lender that works directly with the equipment manufacturer.