Federal Home Loan Bank of Indianapolis
11/07/2024 | Press release | Distributed by Public on 11/07/2024 11:10
Elevate Spotlight:Dirt Wain, LLC of Fort Wayne, Ind.
last updated on Thursday, November 7, 2024 in Federal Home Loan Bank Indianapolis
Editor's note: Elevate Spotlight is an ongoing series of profiles focused on recipients of our Elevate Small Business Grant program. Today's installment: Dirt Wain, LLC from Fort Wayne, Ind.
Eco-friendly Dirt Wain, LLC began as a gesture of optimism and love for the community its owners call home. As you may have guessed, this northeast Indiana business calls Fort Wayne home, and they're determined to make it a sustainable one.
You'd be forgiven for not being familiar with the name Dirt Wain; co-owner Brett Bloom founded the business only a few years ago in 2019, and it began - quite literally - from the ground up.
When the former educator was feeling frustrated with his career and felt like it was time to make a change, he came across a woman running a similar composting business out of Detroit. "There was nobody doing that in Fort Wayne," he says, "So I thought, let's do that. I don't have $100,000 worth of experience or land, but I'm a lifelong composter, so at least I know what to do."
And he did. Brett bought a bike cart, convinced a few friends to help build a large, three-bend system in the backyard and solicited compost donations from neighborhood volunteers for the first six months of the business. With only a dozen families involved in the project at its earliest stages, Brett began networking and drumming up a presence at the local farmer's market, where more folks could drop off their scraps to be turned into compost.
Dirt Wain stands out in the market by owning their entire process. Where many consumer-facing composting businesses make their name collecting scraps and waste that they then turn over to a secondary company, Dirt Wain does it all. And the soil created from those neighbors and area businesses goes right back into the community. "We work with a lot of organizations serving food-insecure communities, whether they're veterans, unhoused people, seniors or very low-income people," Brett says.
What do you do, though, when those small and medium-sized piles of individual food scraps and yard waste become huge cubic yards of compost? "We've really been focused on building up our collections and not so much on the distribution of compost, but because things have mushroomed in the past year, we have an enormous amount of compost on site that's going to be ready in the spring. We just have to move it, and with our little gravity sifter I can't imagine." He grimaces while describing the situation. "I can't imagine the hours it would take to process 2300 tons of finished compost."
That's where 1st Source Bank and the FHLBank Indianapolis Elevate Small Business grant comes in. Dirt Wain was first informed of the Elevate program in 2023 through Andrea Ehresman, their 1st Source business banker when she encouraged them to apply.
"1st Source is committed to serving our business clients with products and services like Elevate to help businesses and our communities," said Mark Gould, community development manager. The team at 1st Source Bank included Andrea Ehresman; Andrea Schaefer, 1st Source banking center manager and small business lender; and Gould. "We're pleased Dirt Wain is an Elevate grant recipient to help with the purchase of new equipment."
Pictured: Dirt Wain's new composter, purchased with Elevate grant funds.
Brett says, "We've got a lease on property owned by a large organic hay farming family, and without the new equipment, we probably would have asked them to take it and spread it on their fields, or otherwise cleared it out to make space for more." The new equipment, however, makes the moving process simpler and easier.
This means Dirt Wain will now be able to really maximize their potential. "Last year we sold maybe 30 or 40 yards [of the compost we made]," he says. They gave more away due to capacity restrictions that prevented Dirt Wain from taking full advantage of heavy springtime demand.
The new machine will allow them to make more sales from the food scraps they collect and compost. With the stock remaining and increased capacity going forward, Dirt Wain is poised to quadruple their sales next year.
As Brett puts it, "We're a business that has to convince people that what we're doing is the right thing and then to pay us to do the right thing. In some respects, we're like a non-profit and we do a lot of community outreach." With Dirt Wain's increased efficiency and projected boost in sales, Brett will have more time to focus on strategic development and outreach to the community he loves.
One of the unsung benefits to this new piece of equipment? It was manufactured nearby in Marshall, Mich., just an hour and a half away. Other equipment they use is even more local, sourced from just 45 minutes away in Silver Lake, Ind.
"I'm just really happy to be supporting Midwestern companies and extending the love that we were shown. It's critical, I think, to give that support when we can. That's super important to us."
Story by Katherine Marshall , Corporate Communications Specialist. For more information, contact the Corporate Communications department at [email protected] .