This past spring, DrydenWire featured a story on Spooner business, Botanic Innovations, located on South River Street, who manufactures skin-care products and dietary supplements. A company that also sells plant-based seed products to other manufacturers by the barrel and has partnered to move its products by the container load into Asian markets.
Now the company is being recognized by the University of Wisconsin, Madison where founder Mark Mueller graduated in 1967 with a master’s degree in water resources management.
“My experience at UW-Madison helped me develop critical thinking and lifelong learning skills,” says Mueller. “For a lot of people, what they start out doing isn’t going to be what their lifelong career is going to be, but those skills are important.”
Mueller, the founder and chief technical officer is proof of that. After a stint as a special operations Navel officer in Vietnam, Mueller’s career took him to hydrology in Vermont and then economic development in Minnesota and Wisconsin.
The Appleton native helped boost Wisconsin’s economy and environment at the Northwest Wisconsin Regional Planning Commission, where he eventually became executive director.
With an eye toward developing plant-oil biodegradable lubricants proved unworkable, his newly established firm reinvented itself. In 2000, he was selling plant-seed oils one gallon at a time, largely to home-based skin care businesses.
Today, the Spooner based company has 15 employees and their products, including consumer product line Immuno-Viva, are made with the firm’s proprietary Nature FRESH Cold Press technology, protected by three approved patents for claims on the use of cold-pressed botanical seed oils.
The firm recently created SO Plus, a ready-to-eat nutrition mix containing its fruit seed powders and oils, and teamed with Singapore based AXXA Global for distribution and marketing.
“It’s sold in Hong-Kong, Singapore, Malaysia, Taiwan and later this year, in other Asian countries,” Mueller says. “There is tremendous opportunity for growth for Botanic Innovations and that’s good for Washburn County.”
The University of Wisconsin, Madison is so proud of his accomplishments that they’ve given him space on a billboard located on highway 53 north of Spooner with his picture and their compliments. Mark and his wife, Karen stood in front of the billboard for their photo.
Last Update: Oct 23, 2016 5:17 pm CDT
