We recently connected with Brecca Hipwell and have shared our conversation below.
Brecca, looking forward to hearing all of your stories today. How did you come up with the idea for your business?
REKO is a Finnish term meaning fair consumption. While it wasn’t an original idea, Tia was the first to bring REKO to the states. A few updates from the video, we now have an app! We will slowly be pushing all sale avenues to the app for ease of ordering for both our customers and our vendors. Check it out rekohub.com/treasurevalley
It has certainly been a journey, connecting people with not only local food but the ability to buy it straight from the producers creates an entire new meaning to the term “Local.”
Awesome – so before we get into the rest of our questions, can you briefly introduce yourself to our readers.
Hi, My name is Brecca Hipwell. My husband is a multi-generational rancher. In our desire to carry on family tradition we had to get creative. We had to think outside the box of the “family business” he had been raised in. Nothing was handed down, given or free. We were starting from scratch and the traditional “commercial ranching” took thousands of acres and more funds than we had access to. So we melded our interests- Mitch wanted to ranch and Brecca loved community and people. Before we knew it we were building community with people who valued our process of raising clean, healthy beef. This allowed us to raise less beef but still meet the demands of expenses to run our operation. We now sell all our meats direct to consumer. Our community continues to push us to grow. We simply listen to the need and find a way to fill it. In 2020 we faced hard times as we were met with unprecedented challenges. We were one of several producers feeling the squeeze and needed solutions fast! With Farmers Markets dancing back and forth on whether to open for the season, struggling themselves to meet the “covid” regulation demands being placed on them by local health districts we felt frustrated. We still had product, our community still wanted it and we knew we needed to find a way to get it to them. REKO was the solution that not only offered pickup sites of our product to our community but a slew of producers offering pickup in the same location at the same time offered all the benefits of a farmers market without all the red-tape local markets were facing at the time. REKO grew, now offering 7 pickup sites throughout the Treasure Valley. We know this local eco-system of clean, local food takes dedicated producers and community to keep the wheel turning. With 4 years under our belt we are most proud of the personal touch we are able to offer. We don’t have customers. We have Community, a community of friends supporting each others needs every single week of the year!
Can you share a story from your journey that illustrates your resilience?
REKO, originally a Facebook only platform continued to grow. We were having such success that we snagged the attention of the Facebook algorithms and other Facebook admin features. Within a matter of a day we were experiencing throttling of our groups, producers not being able to post, comments (which were orders) being flagged and removed with no warning or way of recall and an uneasy feeling that threatened the future of REKO. How could we create another platform with the magnitude and ease of Facebook? What did our future hold if we moved off of Facebook? The decision wasn’t easy, but change was on the horizon yet again. Only 3 short years after starting REKO and experiencing such monumental success. Change was and is hard! Hard for everyone but our community held it together. Moving off Facebook created a loss in some community but opened doors for everyone who didn’t use Facebook to join us! We knew this was a temporary solution while we searched for a better “app like” solution. So we pivoted off Facebook, started a membership (to help our community raise funds to build a solution, that would meet all REKO needs), offered monthly classes to teach and educate members in preserving foods, rendering fats and inspiring community through farm tours. We’ve enjoyed growing as a community, learning together, inspiring one another and finding joy in the journey. We weren’t sure how long we’d have to work to raise funds for our community but we were in it to win it!
Can you tell us about a time you’ve had to pivot?
Just as the almighty has a way of preparing us before we even know we need preparing, as had been the entire history of REKO Treasure Valley, puzzle pieces were laid before us that created the perfect fit for the final landing of REKO- Local Food Community. See a short time before our move off Facebook an ambitious developer had reached out, in the beginning phases of their project, to create ease in shopping local. Their name was Local Chow. Loving their intention, I spent some time working with them, informing them of the needs from Vendors, the Community and the Admin functions within REKO. I shared all the in and outs of our needs, what the optimal solution would look like and dreamed up just what the entire solution could provide to our community. Then we went our separate ways. Facing our own need to pivot and addressing what was in front of us, we had forgotten about this conversation and hired a community member to help us create our own website. One that would serve us better than the temporary one we were using. This had become a long, drawn out process that was expensive and not offering the timely relief we were hoping for. With no other option we continued showing up each week, building community, offering classes and hoping time would bring us to a better solution! Then one day I received a message from the fellas I had talked with a few years back asking if I had time to chat. Overwhelmed and hopeful for our solution to be around the corner that we had already invested in I didn’t offer a reply. A few months later at our local pickup Tyler came over, shook my hand and reminded me of our conversation a few years prior about Local chow. He had come all the way to Idaho just to meet with REKO. I obliged his efforts and gratefully so. Just over a year after this transition we are excited to announce our final home! Rekohub.com/treasurevalley
This was a great lesson to keep the doors open, be attentive and when looking for solutions don’t ever be too set in your way to not recognize when a pivot is the better solution!
Contact Info:
- Website: rekohub.com/treasurevalley
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/rekotreasurevalley/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/REKOIDAHO