Business center opens ag store

Marketing your business is challenging even in the best economy but chamber of commerce officials say success in a recession is all about promoting and advertising goods and services to your own community.

It’s just that sort of promotion that prompted the Colusa County Business & Visitor Center to open its own retail store, which offers only local products.

“Our goal is to be able to offer a variety of Colusa County grown items so we can show some of the great things our county has to offer,” said Melanie Jacobs, executive secretary for the Colusa County Chamber of Commerce.

The store features products like stone-ground cornmeal from Ridgecut Gristmills in Arbuckle, high-quality red-streaked cranberry beans from Colusa Milling Company, locally grown rice from California Family Foods and more.

Jacobs said local companies donated their products to help the business center get the store established. Future products will be purchased at low cost with savings passed on to shoppers.

“It is not our intent to make money off of these products,” Jacobs said. “It is our intent to showcase what is  available in our community. Our catch phrase is ‘we help connect our businesses to our visitors.’”

Jacobs said the center intends to expand its retail store to include other products, such as art and hand-made goods.

Farmers market

Local growers will have another opportunity to showcase their products in Colusa – and sell directly to local consumers – when the business center begins operation of a certified farmers market.

Jacob said the market will be held from 5 to 8 p.m. Mondays beginning June 1 in the front parking lot of the center, located at 2963 Davison Court, Colusa.

“This is an ideal location because Highway 20 is so well traveled,” Jacobs said.

Jacobs said the business center plans to eventually host a pumpkin patch with activities for children and many other events that draw people inside.

“We may not be able to get a pumpkin patch underway this year but our goal is to host events that are fun for the whole family,” Jacobs said.

The center is working with Arbuckle’s Farmers Market vendors so that local farmers have two great places to market their products in the Colusa County, Jacobs said.

The business center – which houses the Colusa County Chamber of Commerce and Colusa County Economic Development Corporation – has attracted several thousand people in its five years of operation, averaging 300 hundred visitors and several hundred business referrals each month.

Jacobs said the retail store and the farmers market is expected to draw even more people to the business center, where visitors can learn about local businesses, services and recreational opportunities.

Contact Susan Meeker at 458-2121 or smeeker@tcnpress.com.