Get your copy of our weekly print products at any of these convenient locations.

Foodies go crackers for Potter's

Susan Troller  —  8/22/2008 3:36 pm

Thanks to an innovative pair of Madison food entrepreneurs, the lowly cracker gets to be a star at the snack table, rather than just the unsung transport vehicle for cheese or savory dips.

But it's not just any cracker that chefs like Chicago's Rick Bayless of Frontera Grill fame are raving about and local consumers are craving.

Created in a variety of flavors from organic, locally sourced ingredients, Potter's Crackers are mixed, rolled, baked, packed and labeled by Nancy and Peter Potter plus a small crew at their east side kitchen to meet the growing demand for the upscale alternative to Triscuits.

They're expensive -- about $4 to $6 for a hand-tied, 5-ounce package -- but the crackers are being sold faster than the Potters can produce them.

That demand is likely to grow, thanks in part to big-city food icons like Bayless promoting the crackers. The chef paired the fancy crackers with artisanal cheeses at a recent food demonstration at downtown Chicago's Green City Market.

Nancy Potter, a former owner of the New Glarus Bakery, said she began thinking about creating fancy crackers several years ago.

"I'd always thought crackers were kind of cool. And then I went to some events where really great Wisconsin cheese was served with some really ordinary crackers," she said. "I started looking for something better... something that was a better match for those fantastic artisan cheeses.

"Honestly, I didn't find them. I figured I could try to make some myself."

As she began talking about building a better cracker, she found an eager partner in her son, Peter.

Then an undergraduate in food science and business at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, he was enthusiastic about putting his notions about food, sustainable agriculture and business into practice.

"I knew it was a good idea," he said. He, too, was disappointed with the quality of mass-produced crackers commonly served with gourmet cheese.

During the winter of 2005, Nancy Potter began experimenting with recipes.

"From the beginning, we wanted crackers that were healthy -- whole-grain and low-fat -- but still tasty. I worked on the recipes, and Peter was the taster," she said.

It was Peter's idea, she said, to add herbs, vegetables, fruits and seeds to the crackers, adding variety and flavor.

Year-round flavors include garlic and baby onion, basil walnut pesto, six seed, toasted sesame and caraway rye. Seasonal flavors include grilled corn, jalapeno, Cheddar mustard, rhubarb graham, rosemary and hazelnut graham crackers.

"We want the crackers to be able to stand on their own, but also to be the perfect match for really good cheese," Peter Potter explained.

For example, his mother said that the rosemary cracker was an excellent companion for Pleasant Ridge Reserve, an award-winning artisanal cheese from Dodgeville. She also suggested Potter's caraway rye as a base for any of the blue-veined cheeses, noting that the pairing is delicious served with apples or pears.

"I love goat cheese with our garlic and baby onion, and I think a nutty cheese like the Emmentaler from Edelweiss Creamery is fantastic with our rhubarb graham," she said. Potter's sweeter graham-based crackers are also a fine match with a creamy cheese like Italy's mascarpone, she added.

At Brasserie V restaurant on Monroe Street, cheesecake with a crust made from Potter's crackers is on the dessert menu.

When the Potters and their small group of bakers began producing and selling the crackers late in 2006, a big order was 30 packages of crackers sent twice a week to the Willy Street Co-op. Now, Nancy Potter said, the cracker bakery on Baldwin Street turns out 300 packages of crackers each day, and serves about 15 retail outlets, mostly in Madison and Milwaukee. Shoppers can find the crackers at Metcalfe's Sentry, Whole Foods and Barriques, among others.

During last year's holiday season, an owner of one Milwaukee food specialty shop said his allotment of Potter's crackers met only about 10 percent of customer demand.

"We'll need to figure out some ways to increase production, I think," Nancy Potter said. But she also emphasized that they want the business to remain regional, and to continue individual relationships with the 20 farmer/producers who supply ingredients.

And she doesn't want to ship the crackers a long distance, or try to increase shelf life with preservatives.

"Time is the enemy of a really good, fresh cracker," she said.

"I think we could grow the business to sell crackers in the Minneapolis and Chicago market, but I don't really want to expand much beyond that," she said.

Besides ramping up production, other changes for the tiny bakery are in store.

Peter Potter is now in a graduate program in the UW's systems engineering program with an emphasis on food. Next year, he's been accepted for a fellowship on entrepreneurship in California. Sponsored by Stanford University, the program welcomes only about a dozen students from all over the world for a semester.

Susan Troller  —  8/22/2008 3:36 pm