Meat and potatoes: New Magic Valley food business keeps it simple and local | Business

The business is just meat and potatoes today, but Dixon intends to offer a greater diversity of local products in the future. He’s trying to get local bison and lamb, plus local cheese and milk. Beans, fresh produce, Idaho-grown fruit — Dixon has a big vision for what Meat and Potato Company can become, and he wants to try and involve lots of Magic Valley and Idaho producers.

It was scary to leave a well-paying job to start a new business, Dixon said. The days during these first few months have been fun, but busy. Dixon’s pretty much working alone, doing everything from packing boxes to maintaining the website, to finding new suppliers and marketing.

“Every time I turn around I look at the clock and don’t know what happened the last four or five hours,” Dixon said.

But so far, people do seem to want locally-grown, aged steaks, Falls Brand pork, Magic Valley spuds and Pacific Northwest chicken. The early signs seem to suggest Dixon was right, eight years ago, when he predicted people would want to buy these foods. Meat and Potato Company is selling a couple of hundred boxes a month already and people from 38 different states have made a purchase.

“We plan on expanding as much locally as we possibly can,” he said. “I think this is just the tip of the iceberg.”