After years of planning and methodical development, Oregon grocer Market of Choice is launching a private label line of products to offer consumers new items and local manufacturers and producers a new line business.

Called Craft & Kitchen, the new line is starting with dairy and pantry products. Products will be sold across the company’s 11 stores statewide. The company has one store in Portland, on Southeast Belmont, and is about to open its fourth metro store in Hillsboro at Reeds Crossing Town Centre this spring. Its two other metro stores are in Cedar Mill and West Linn.

This launch is the latest step for the grocer that has become an important part of the local food ecosystem.

With this new private label the retailer, which has 1,400 statewide employees, is working with local companies to produce each product. To start, the store is contracting with partner businesses for a run of items, and then as the products gain traction it will make future orders.

“We have specific commitments as we can grow a product it can stay with that producer,” said Dewey Weddington, vice president of marketing for Market of Choice. The intent is to help producers fill their capacity and grow their businesses as well.

Partner companies come through the Market of Choice MOJO program, which has worked with hundreds of local producers with guidance, targeted funding and distribution assistance.

One of the first products launched is a line of flavored tortilla chips with Portland-based Hot Mama Salsa. Under the Craft & Kitchen label the chips are called Local Heat and are made by Hot Mama Salsa using a flavor recipe with spices from Forest Grove pepper farm Peppered Earth.

“For someone passionate about the local food community, it’s exciting to work with a grocery chain that truly supports small makers,” said Nikki Guerrero, owner of Hot Mama Salsa. “Oregon has one of the most amazing food cultures in the country, if not the world.”

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Sam Gehrke

The new line helps Guerrero fill capacity at her new manufacturing facility which makes her salsa, chili oil, hot sauce and new line of tortilla chips.

The ability to help fill in capacity for existing producers was important to Market of Choice, Weddington said. The company did not want to look to out-of-state co-packers for the products. Part of the preparation to launch the label has been identifying partners who would have the capacity to grow with the line.

“A large part of what is happening, like in Nikki’s case, she had capacity that wasn’t being used,” Weddington said. “She has room to grow and she isn’t doing that 100% on her own. We can help her fill the gap and that brings her costs down and overhead down and keeps her price contained.”

In some other cases they are partnering with larger organizations that have experience with the higher volume, such as Paradigm Foodworks in Lake Oswego. That company is partnering on a line of Craft & Kitchen pasta sauces. And within those sauces the ingredients are also locally sourced, said Weddington.

Other producers that will have Craft & Kitchen products this year are:

Overall, the company has about 100 different products in development, Weddington said, but they will roll out on a slow and methodical basis with the right partners.

“There is no big corporate goal. That is not the reason we are (creating this label),” he said. “We are doing it in large part to add capacity and help small makers if they can handle it.”

In addition to this private label project, the family-owned retailer also partners with local winemakers for private-label wine. Its wine labels are Community Cellars, which is a collaboration with John Grochau of Grochau Cellars, Intersect, which is a partnership with NW Wine Company and buys grapes from Oregon and Washington, and The Bubbles Project, which imports sparkling wine.