New owners bring manufacturing, business expertise to Kettle Care organic skin-care line

If choosing someone to purchase a company involved traditional job interviews, it seems likely that Klaus and Annegret Pfeifer would be the perfect hires to run Kettle Care Organics, a Whitefish-area company producing a line of therapeutic organic skin-care products.

Annegret has a business background with a master’s degree in accounting and a bachelor’s in economics from the University of Texas and a master’s in banking from a Germany university.

She also has a longtime history with chemical-free skin-care products, making her own lotions by age 20 but giving up that practice after she discovered Kettle Care.

She has been a loyal Kettle Care customer since.

“The unique things I like about Kettle Care are the very natural and simple ingredients,” Annegret said. “It is a very clean product and there no chemicals for people who don’t want any chemistry on their skin.”

Klaus is a retired Semitool/Applied Materials executive with expertise in lean manufacturing and quality systems as well as physics and chemistry degrees from the University of Hamburg in Germany. He has more than 30 years of experience in research and development, engineering, manufacturing, product development and marketing in the high-tech semiconductor industry.

The couple purchased Kettle Care from founder and 30-year owner Lynn Wallingford in October 2012. Wallingford started the business as a home-based operation and was manufacturing products out of a few buildings on Farm to Market Road when the Pfeifers purchased the company.

“She had built the business from the ground up over the last 30 years,” Annegret said. “She went into a lot of markets, farmers market, trade shows, and arts and crafts shows.

“That is commendable to do. In this kind of industry, a lot of people start and never bring it to that level. She has a very loyal customer base, which is amazing.”

The Pfeifers are currently renovating a 5,000-square-foot space on U.S. 93 North between Whitefish and Kalispell to become the company’s new manufacturing complex. The facility will feature a laboratory, full production line, packaging area and herbal gardens.

The Pfeifers also plan a retail store on the same site as the manufacturing facility, something not possible at the company’s current location.

“You can get closer to the customers, which is how you get ideas to develop new products, and what’s working and what’s not,” Klaus said of the retail plan.

Annegret said Kettle Care’s half dozen employees — whom she called an “amazing work force” — are looking forward to having all operations in one building and on one level. She expects to add a few new employees once the move is complete.

The company probably will transfer to the new facility within the next few months, she said.

“The company is growing, and it had totally outgrown the facility,” Klaus said. “We’re putting up a full-blown manufacturing facility. Before, the company grew organically, with an add-on here and space added there, but we designed the work flow and designed the building around the work flow.”

Klaus said his microchip manufacturing development experience applies nicely to the skin-care line production.

“It’s a different product, but how you go about things is very much the same if you do it right,” he said.

Natural skin care is a growing industry and Kettle Care’s business has increased “quite dramatically,” Klaus said. But facility limitations have kept the company from pursuing bigger accounts with some of the well-known national names in organic retail.

“There are big companies that are contacting us, but we can’t do the manufacturing yet,” Klaus said.

He said he believes Kettle Care Organics has great growth potential.

“When you look at most health and beauty products, they have all these chemicals you can’t even pronounce the name of, and a lot of people have allergies to the chemicals,” Klaus said. “Also our products really work.”

The majority of Kettle Care’s herbs are purchased locally, Klaus said. There are a limited number of organic farms in the valley but enough to find most of the herbs for Kettle Care products. The essential oils mostly come from outside Northwest Montana, Klaus said, though the company is still trying to stay as geographically close as possible for its ingredient needs.

Kettle Care’s emulsifiers are based on Montana beeswax and organic shea butter. The production methods are made without chemicals, high heats, impure additives or industrial pollutants.

 Business reporter Heidi Gaiser may be reached at 758-4439 or by email at hgaiser@dailyinterlake.com.