 Secretary Jacobsen congratulates ‘Best in Show’ winners at 2022 Made in Montana Tradeshow
HELENA, Mont. — Montana Secretary of State Christi Jacobsen congratulated the winners of the Best in Show honor at the 2022 Made in Montana Tradeshow this weekend. The tradeshow was held Friday and Saturday at the Lewis and Clark County Fairgrounds.
Windrift Hill of Conrad took home the top honor on Friday afternoon, while Montana Block of Billings and Lake Missoula Tea Company of Missoula were also honored.
“Congratulations to the winners of the Best in Show awards at this year’s Made in Montana Tradeshow,” said Secretary Jacobsen. “Being honored in front of your peers is a great accomplishment. Each of the Made in Montana, Grown in Montana, and Native American Made in Montana businesses plays a key role in our state’s growing economy. Thank you for doing business in Montana.”
Windrift Hill creates all-natural goat milk soaps, goat milk lotions and body butters using farm fresh goat milk. The family-owned business has products for sale all around the nation, and even internationally.
“This is a true Montana success story that represents the hard work of a family,” said Lieutenant Governor Kristen Juras, who presented the Best in Show honors on Friday afternoon.
“It was really a great honor. Some of our first wholesale shows were at the Made in Montana show. We were a very small, brand-new business when that started, so to get the award as the Best in Show was an absolute honor,” said Windrift Hill’s Amber Hofstad. “It means a lot because I know there are a lot of Montana businesses that are doing a really great job and that have a lot of really great products to offer.”
Montana Block is a small, family-owned business based in Billings that prides itself “on building functional, high-quality and unique wooden kitchen products, specializing in end-grain butcher blocks.” Owner and business manager Brittany Martishius says being recognized is especially memorable as the company makes new strides.
“It’s very exciting. This is our first time here at this (Made in Montana tradeshow),” said Martishius. “We’ve been in business for about six or seven years now, and we just converted to an LLC (Limited Liability Company) now, hired our first full-time employee, and we’re growing very quickly. It’s very authentic and it’s very exciting.”
Lake Missoula Tea Company opened its doors in 2012 and carries teas from small-scale farms worldwide. The company prides itself on the relationship with its source farms, which delivers a high-quality product for customers in Montana and beyond.
“The owners are both native Montanans, so this is our home,” said general manager Ryan Alexander Payne. “This is a great place, obviously surrounded by all these really awesome products and people, we’re just honored to be part of it. We focus on paying a living wage, which is very important, and we focus on farms that pay living wages to their pickers and employees as well. We have relationships with all the farms we buy from as well, so it’s really a relationship-, community-oriented business that we have here.”
For more information on the Made in Montana program, visit the official website online.
The Mission of the Office of the Secretary of State is to protect the integrity of elections, be an asset to businesses and preserve official history.
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