Our History

In 1987, a group of specialty foods producers formed the Maine Specialty Foods Procers Association. We tried to register the name, but there was too much conflict with the name of a Maine company. We became the Specialty Foods Producers Association of Maine (with the unfortunate acronym of SFPAM). In 1988, the Maine Science and Technology Commission created the Food Processing Department Committee, who helped to start the Maine Food Processors Association in 1989. In 1991, it was clear that the only people going to meetings of the Maine Food Processors Association were specialty foods people. So, we decided to join the two organizations and keep the Maine Food Processors Association name in order to be inclusive of all food manufacturers in Maine.

The name did not represent a majority of the members and made it hard for us to define ourselves to non-food people who affect our industry. In 1998, the membership voted to change the organization's name to the Maine Gourmet and Specialty Food Produceres. By identifying ourselves more clearly, we can present ourselves in ways that will make it clear that the specialty food industry makes a significant contribution to Maine's economy. We are still a part of Maine's food processing community, but now we can say that our many little companies are important in and of themselves. As part of this effort to more clearly define our membership in the eyes of the rest of the State, we have expanded our advocacy role with the legislature. We want the legislature to sit up and take notice of us and to be more willing to allocate dollars to the State institutions which directly aid us -- the Department of Agriculture, the Department of Economic and Community Development, and the University of Maine's Food Science Department, to name three.