'Mom-and-pop' company grows into something more

Nearly 30 years ago, Linda and Dean Knutson sat with their children, Heather and Cory, at the Rancho Deluxe in Polson.

“I still remember sitting there, all of us laughing… ‘When the pasta goes national,’” General Manager Heather Knutson recalled.

“We were joking about it then, but I still think my dad, though he would never admit it… He said he wanted a mom-and-pop business, but he knew” it would go on to sell in almost all 50 states, she added.

The idea of what later became Country Pasta, distributed by Country Foods, Inc. in Polson, is a thriving “fun, grassroots business” that employs 25 people, producing about 2 million pounds of pasta a year.

In 2006, Dean passed away and in 2008, Linda sold the company to Fred and Amy Kellogg.

“Fred and I know what our strengths are,” Kellogg said, adding that some strengths include having “a talented and incredible team.”

Although a small business, she said that long-term employees have been promoted within, changing lives through the promotions.

To give back to their employees, benefits packages and stock sharing are provided, Kellogg said.

“It’s pretty cool,” she said, smiling.

Since the Kellogg’s purchase of Country Pasta, another business venture has been added: specialty tea.

“It’s interesting because Country Pasta has a little more of a conventional market… (The chai) has a different type of market,” Amy Kellogg explained.

Tipu’s Chai is mixed and packaged at the same 35,000 square foot facility where the pasta is made.

The pasta company has grown so over the years that warehouses in California, Utah and Indiana have been added to accommodate large retailers such as Costco.

This holiday season, the company is focusing on helping downtown Polson businesses, Knutson said.

“We provided (the businesses) with single-serve Chai packets,” Knutson said, adding that the packets can be dropped into purchases made.

Each year, she said that Country Foods, Inc. donates to food pantries and other food-based programs.

Walking into the pasta production area, guests and workers are hit by a wall of warm air, the aroma of fresh dough and loud humming of industrial equipment.

A pasta machine that Linda and Dean purchased from Italy still stands in the building, along with some of the other original equipment used when the company was first starting out.

Beginnging at 3 a.m., employees start up the machines, mixing together semolina, eggs, sea salt and water.

After the ingredients are mixed together, the dough is sheeted into one large pasta sheet.

The sheets of pasta are then cut down into size, transported by conveyor belts to a drying area.

A second shift packages the product, starting the day at 7 a.m.

Finally, a third shift reports to work at 10 a.m. to clean and sanitize the machines.

Ensuring consumer safety, Knutson said that there is a third-party auditing company that performs the process of making sure the company is running by regulations.

Keeping the family theme, Cory handles in-house quality control.

“We’ve been doing (the third-party audits) for roughly 10 years,” Knutson said, adding that the process is used to make improvements.

“We want their input, and we want their help. We want to be doing it right.”