(upbeat music) - [Narrator] Today on "Business Made in Montana," we introduce you to more companies that call Montana home, create interesting and unique products, hire Montana workers to keep the state's economy rolling.

We're crossing Big Sky Country to tell you the stories of "Business Made in Montana."

- [Announcer] This University of Montana School of Journalism student production is made possible with support from the Greater Montana Foundation.

The Greater Montana Foundation benefits the people of Montana by encouraging communication on issues, trends, and values of importance to present and future generations of Montana, and by the University of Montana.

- Welcome to "Business Made in Montana."

I'm Anastasija Kriusenko.

- And I'm Dan Ennis.

Today, we're gonna bring you stories of businesses making it work Big Sky Country.

- Since 1987, Huckleberry Haven located outside Glacier National Park, has manufactured wild berry delecacies.

Each berry grows naturally in the Montana forest and can be only handpicked each summer.

Their time-honored recipes are made in small batches to highlight the flavor of the Northwest.

Let's go to Kalispell and check out Huckleberry Haven.

- It's much more robust than any blueberry you've ever had in your life.

There are several different varieties.

And so, some of the teardrop varieties are just probably one of my favorites because they're yummy and they're a little more sweet.

But it gives folks who are not from this area an opportunity to take a little bit of Montana home with them.

And so, and they oftentimes share it with their loved ones or their friends.

It's a great word-of-mouth kind of thing when they get home.

I'm Lisa Lewis, co-owner of Huckleberry Haven here in Kalispell, Montana.

So yeah, we've we found a business and we ended up buying it, and up and quit our very stable jobs, and came to Montana on almost a whim.

And it's been a fabulous experience.

We listened to our customers, and we actually added 22 new products just by listening to our customers the first year.

So we've kind of grown it a little bit since then.

And now we've had it for a full 19 years.

- You know, it's pretty much a Montana thing.

As we've grown as a business, we've picked up other types of products that we do that could be done other places in the country, but it allows us to continue to have a year-round successful business here instead of just a seasonal business.

I'm Edward Springman.

I am the general manager and one of the owners of Huckberry Haven Incorporated.

- [Lisa] Ed and I are great at being able to say, "Oh, there's a product that a customer wants.

Can we do it?

Will it make money?

What does it take for us to do it?

Okay, we'll do it."

So, we say no sometimes, but not all the time.

(laughs) We have like 700 different products.

So, we're really bad at saying no.

- We deal with lots of different wild berry products and some domesticated jams and jellies also.

And then we'll actually do some flathead cherry products in this area.

And then for other places in the country, we'll make products that are unique to their area, if it's cranberries or marionberries for Oregon or however else.

But predominantly huckleberries are associated with Northwest Montana.

And the process in there, we're taking the huckleberries, we're mixing them with pectin and sugar, and we're heating them up with some old family recipes that we have.

Then we're putting them in the different jugs.

And with Huckleberry Haven, we don't do a lot of our jam in a highly processed area of filling equipment because we fill so many different sizes.

We may fill huckleberry jam and nine different jars and we do toppings or a pie filling, barbecue sauce.

So we're able to switch back and forth between different products and different packages very quickly.

- We pour chocolates.

We pour fudge.

We do use a manufacturer that we have a pre-made mix for us.

And then we put it in different containers.

We swirl different inclusions in them.

So huckleberry vanilla and huckleberry chocolate are our favorites around here.

They're pretty yummy.

So real huckleberries go into them.

Huckleberries have never been successfully planted, commercially harvested.

So they're all wild, left unscathed, undone, no pesticide, no anything.

They're just in the wilderness.

We have the local folks who pick them and they go to produce stands.

- You know, I think both businesses that are created and fostered here in the state are really important to keep things local, keep the small-town feel.

My name is Lauren Boylan, and I am a cannery cook.

I cook batches and lid the batches after they're all poured and lidded by hand.

And all the production is done one batch at a time.

- Folks don't always share where they got their huckleberries at.

Kind of like, you know, where did you find your elk at?

Or where did you catch your big fish at?

Or however.

Folks always don't tell those secrets.

So, we'll buy those berries from those different individuals between eight and 80.

A lot of families we've purchased from for years.

We're on the third or fourth different generation.

- [Lauren] Everyone I meet is so nice, very, very polite.

It's a beautiful area.

And there's so much to do.

- [Lisa] And I love Montana, it's gorgeous.

- [Anastasija] To find out more about these wild berry delicacies, go to huckleberryhaven.com.

- Our next business is a great example of the American dream coming true.

A couple with a growing family and a growing business, and a lot has changed for them in six years.

What started out as a small business in Bigfork has turned into The Montana Scene, a Montana based T-shirt and gift shop with five locations statewide and a warehouse and headquarters in Kalispell.

Let's go check it out.

- Montana's important to us because we're raising our family here.

It's a part of us, my wife and I own The Montana Scene.

The main focus of The Montana Scene is graphic tees and apparel.

Our brand is focused on outdoor fashion because people love to experience the beautiful scenery of Montana.

Traditional tourists are looking for more unique, and I guess, trendy gift items that aren't your traditional gas station T-shirt.

- Our target demographic is somebody who loves the outdoors.

We don't really have a typical age range.

I feel like there's a lot of companies that say like, "Oh, we really do have, you know, kind of the younger crowd."

But what's so nice is we really try to cater to everyone, if you're a young mom or if you're a grandma, or if you're a young person in college, we try to have something that's gonna fit your love for the outdoors.

And that's kind of what streamlines through everything.

- I'm the North manager.

So I manage the three stores up here which is Bigfork, Kalispell, and Whitefish.

And so I helped to make sure the product gets out to the stores.

We just get the boxes in the back.

And then I check to make sure that we've got the correct number in.

And then we send them to the screen printer.

And once we get them back, we tag them and barcode them.

And then check in our system to see what stores need what, and then that's how we decide how much we send to each store.

- My name's Fiona and I'm the warehouse manager.

So I do all the web orders and the wholesale.

And we have blank hats and patches.

So I glue the patches on.

And once the patch is dry, then we have a hat press.

And we use that to press the patches.

When we get web orders, I pull the products from our warehouse, and then I fold the clothes up and I package them nicely in tissue paper and put them in a bag and they get shipped out.

- We started in May, 2010.

It was a cafe and gift shop in Bigfork.

We ran that successfully and grew it.

It was fun, but there's a ceiling for growth.

My wife came up with the idea of The Montana Scene and she's always been into fashion.

So she really wanted to come up with a business that she could grow.

She decided to keep it and rebrand into something that we could market more clearly and easily.

And we could also spread and expand.

And now are focused solely on apparel and gifts.

We had three children while we grew the business.

It was just kind of like, it all fits together.

So we're just like the business is a kind of a part of the family.

Melissa always calls it, you know, it's like having another kid.

- I worked for The Montana Scene for about a year and a half but I have been fortunate enough to know the owners and have watched the company grow pretty closely since they started with Montana Bear Food when I was their son Max's nanny.

What I love about the company is it really is a family atmosphere.

- Hi.

- Hi.

- Thank you.

I love it here.

I love the people here and I just love how this company incorporates symbols of Montana, like the bison and stuff like that to give people that have moved away a reminder of home.

- Currently, we have a really wonderful wholesale program.

And so we work with other boutiques across the entire state of Montana.

And recently, we've branched out outside of the state to all over the country.

We have a website, it's themontanascene.com and it's one of our favorite parts of the business.

We ship all over the country and even all across the world, which makes it a really, really fun, accessible thing.

- We have some initiatives that we're working on to be more community-involved and give some of that success back specifically in the area of children activities, getting kids outside.

And, of course, we have big plans to grow our sales as well.

And I think that will all help.

It'll all work together.

- [Dan] For more information about this Montana gifts and shirt shop, go to themontanascene.com - Located in Bitterroot Valley, Aspen Hot Glass originally sold their products at fairs and galleries.

Now home-based business has its own store in Corvallis.

Let's check out and see how the handmade art is made in Aspen Hot Glass.

- Montana, to me, was like, kind of knew something about it and really loved the mountains.

My name is Bill Grout and I have Aspen Hot Glass as our business I've had for 15 plus years.

I've done glass work for 25 years here in the Valley.

I was always a rock hound and I was really interested in rocks and did some lapidary work cutting stones.

And when I moved to Montana in about '92, I thought I would really pick up on that hobby and turn it into a work.

So, I really, was just sort of a random transition, got some glass, got some tools, started playing around with it.

And I just fell in love with sitting at the torch and playing with fire.

- Hi, I am Rae Grout and I'm kind of the steam punk, dragon attire slash mad chemist Mad Hatter of the company.

(laughs) He asked for my help because I also have a marketing background.

I do graphics design and stuff like that.

And so, he needed my help doing advertising, print advertising for different magazines, for like bead magazines or glass magazines and stuff 'cause he really wanted to launch Aspen Hot Glass.

So he invited me out here, fell in love with it.

So, and I fell in love with him.

I fell in love with his daughter, everything.

And I ended up completely leaving the high-tech avionics industry and moving to the Bitterroot to be a glass blower and to be with Bill.

- Favorite thing for me, that's pretty easy, as big marbles.

I make large art glass marbles, and they're all one-off, one of a kind pieces.

And I do some smaller, simpler marbles too.

But the thing that I love about glass marbles is the only one rule they have is they have to be round.

So I have complete freedom to do whatever colors, whatever designs, and really just kind of experiment with it.

So all the work that we do, we're working with a propane oxygen torch.

We're working with rods of glass and all of the color comes in different sticks of glass.

So, a lot of people like, "Well, how do you get the color inside?"

And the biggest thing to know about glasswork is anything that looks like it's inside glass was on the surface at one point.

There's no magic way you put some things inside of the glass.

And so, I'll start off heating the end of that and building up the color and the patterns from kind of the inside out, and finishing what will eventually be the back of the marble.

And then condensing more of this glass into the front.

So sometimes it'll actually have on the surface kind of wavy marks from being stretched.

We're really blessed to live in a peaceful place.

A lot of times through the years, people come out and visit.

It's like, "How do you get any work done?

It's so beautiful here."

And you know, and it's like, it's sometimes hard to always appreciate what we have.

But it's just nice to be in kind of a country rural setting, but we've got the mountains, we've got the rivers we've got all these things right around us.

- [Anastasija] Find out more about this beautiful handmade glass art at aspenhotglass.com.

Peace, love and plants.

That's the motto of our next business that is located here in Missoula.

They use nuts instead of animal products to make vegan cheese.

Let's check out Missoula's Plant Perks that is encouraging people to switch to vegan lifestyle.

- My name is Tiffany Perkins.

I am 32 years old and I am the founder and chef of Plant Perks.

So I thought about starting Plant Perks when I was in Thailand going to school as a raw vegan chef.

And one of the weeks we spent making vegan cheese and something just clicked inside.

And I thought, "Man, I could make a career out of this."

And I started whipping up some vegan cheeses at school and having the teachers taste it and everybody was blown away and said, "Wow, we would buy this."

So that's kind of when it all began.

We currently manufacture the cream cheese at Moonlight Kitchens in Missoula, Montana.

- The process for making the cheese is we start with raw cashews and we'll weigh them out, and we'll boil them for about four minutes.

- [Tiffany] To kill any possible pathogens, bacteria, anything like that.

- [Jakob] And then we'll add that with filtered water to blenders and blend them all together.

- Right now, we use an army of blenders because it's not the easiest but that's what gives it that whipped creamy texture.

Once we get through all of our cashews, they're all blended into a nice whipped cream, then we're adding in all the cultures.

'Cause then it actually goes into a temperature controlled box where it ferments.

Depending on what type of cashews we're using that week, it ferments anywhere from five hours to almost 17 hours.

So we come in, we check the pH, it's all science.

Basically, at the end of the day, we're at the mercy of this bacteria.

It doesn't do its job, then we're not able to sell the product or it doesn't taste consistent from one to the other.

If the pH has been hit, then we take it out and we put it in the fridge.

The next day we come back and pull it out of the fridge.

And then we add most organic herbs and spices, you know, different flavorings, things like that.

Once all the ingredients are mixed in, then we're packaging it.

So, we're right now, we're actually hand-scooping all the cream into every single container.

And we're also using piping bags.

And once we're done packaging, then we cut out for deliveries.

So we're delivering a lot of the cheeses locally.

And we also have a distributor who picks up the cheese and then takes it all over Montana and Wyoming right now as well.

- I love the cheese because it's just so amazing.

The texture is so fine.

The flavors are so distinct.

- It taste good.

You have to try it.

It's something new and fun and different, so.

So, I chose Montana to start my business for a variety of reasons.

It's just such a wonderful little hippie town in the mountains.

And then I knew that people would welcome Plant Perks with open arms.

Having Plant Perks here has really made me feel like I'm connected to the community and I'm giving something back to Missoula.

Plant Perks is a vegan lifestyle brand and it's going to expand far beyond cheese someday.

So, for it to take off would just mean the world to me.

And it would just make me feel really good that I'm leaving a mark on the planet.

And that I did something with my time on on this earth.

- [Kari] Cheese makes the world go round.

(laughs) - [Anastasija] Get more information on vegan cheese and lifestyle on plantperks.com.

- Our next business is a group of small town Montanans making a big bang in the global work platform market.

They've done business with Lockheed Martin, Boeing, and the US military to name a few.

They've also been Montana's manufacturer of the year and family business of the year.

Let's take a look at Spika Design and Manufacturing in Lewistown.

(rhythmic music) (machines buzzing) - We actually, in our short life of 18 years, have become the premier designers and provider of very specialized elevated work platforms.

All right, I'm Tom Spika.

I used to be the CEO.

Now have put myself in the position of the senior designer here.

So, we've actually grown this into something far more than what we'd started out to be.

It's an interesting position for a small company in rural Montana.

And yet I believe it's a kind of an indicator that it's quite possible in today's environment.

And I think a lot by our philosophy of coming up with better ways of doing things, we've really challenged the rest of the industry, and kind of made a name for ourselves.

- We work with companies like Boeing and NASA that need custom access systems for aircraft or different manufacturing facilities.

I am Bekhi Spika.

I'm the director of sales and marketing here at Spika.

Typically, when a customer has a new access system that they need us to help them design, they can come to us with just basically a napkin sketch.

So, the customer will give me a call, so tell me the basics of what they need.

It can be just in general.

"We have this piece of equipment.

We need to have access at this height.

Can you provide me with a drawing?"

So it's really, really customized.

- My name is Jeff Pierce.

I'm the chief operating officer.

If it's a custom design, the customer will call and say, "I need something that'll do this."

And then our sales engineer will talk with them about specifics.

"What do you need it to do?

Do you need it to move?

Do you need it to be static?

How much height adjustability may you need?"

And it'll come up with a concept.

Then the concept will be sent to the customer and the customer say, "Yes, that's what I need."

Or "No, it's not."

If it is, then we have it thoroughly designed.

We review it.

Then we have our drafting team take that three-dimensional design that we've created.

And then turn it into a two-dimensional traveler, which is then sent to the floor.

The production people on the floor take that traveler.

And from saw to machining, welding, and all through assembly and then shipping, take those two-dimensional travelers and raw material and create the platform that the customer wanted.

(rock music) (machines buzzing) - The company is based in Lewistown, Montana.

And it's kind of an interesting place for a company like ours to exist.

We're literally located in the middle of a field in the middle of Montana.

And I would say we've made a really deliberate decision to stay in Lewistown.

I grew up here, my parents grew up here.

And when my parents wanted to start the business, they didn't even consider moving elsewhere.

It was always assumed that we were going to stay right here and provide good jobs for central Montana.

- I was born and raised here.

So I have a real connection to this community, But it's the quality of life.

It's a great place to raise a family.

It provides a lot of outdoor recreational opportunity for people, And it's still small town America.

♪ And my shield filled with pain ♪ - To get more information on a small town Montana business making it big globally, go to spikamfg.com.

Well, that's our program.

We hope you enjoyed meeting some of the people and businesses that help make our diverse and evolving Montana economy grow.

- On behalf of students, faculty, and staff of the University of Montana School of Journalism, thank you for watching "Business Made in Montana."

I'm Anastasija Kriusenko.

- And I'm Dan Ennis.

- [Announcer] This University of Montana School of Journalism student production is made possible with support from the Greater Montana Foundation.

The Greater Montana Foundation benefits the people of Montana by encouraging communication on issues, trends, and values of importance to present and future generations of Montanans.

And by the University of Montana.

(upbeat music)