About Us

MidwestHazelnuts, LLC is a spin-off business from the Upper Midwest Hazelnut Development Initiative (UMHDI). Hazelnuts are new to the Midwest and launching a new crop and industry is beset by pitfalls and challenges. Poor quality genetics, misaligned markets and supply chains, insufficient capital, unmitigated risk, and exclusionary gatekeepers are among the major challenges that can ruin or greatly delay launching and scaling a new industry.  MidwestHazelnuts, LLC exists to help growers and the industry overcome these challenges and build an equitable and sustainable hazelnut industry in the Midwest.

Who Are We?

Midwest Hazelnuts, LLC is a project of the University of Wisconsin and University of Minnesota's Upper Midwest Hazelnut Development Initative (UMHDI).  We are a start-up, spin-off business from the hazelnut research and development work conducted by the Universities over the last two decades. We are developing a series of stacked business enterprises tasked with utilizing the new hazelnut genetics and technologies developed by the Universities to scale an equitable and sustainable industry. Midwest Hazelnuts, LLC is mission-driven, which means its primary motive is not profit, but instead, creating a new crop and industry that can provide meaningful income opportunities for farmers, plant nurseries, food businesses, and rural communities while also remedying the many soil, water, and climate problems in agriculture.

We are developing a steward ownership model where the focus of the company is the mission (purpose) we have set out for the Upper Midwest Hazelnut Development Initiative. That mission includes:

1. Provide equitable but strategic access to improved hazelnut germplasm to sustainably scale up production.
2. Develop coordinated supply chains and de-risked early production with a network of multi-purpose Go-First Farms.
3. Provide open access to hazelnut processing capacity.
4. Provide access to cost-effective and efficient mechanical harvest and de-husking capacity.
5. Overcome barriers to entry for growers by providing access to low-cost capital.
6. Improve ecosystem services from agricultural lands through use of alley-cropping and other agroforestry practices.

​What this means is that everything Midwest Hazelnuts, LLC does must be mission-driven. It doesn't serve the interests of individual owners, stakeholders, or investors. It serves the interests of the mission.  Central to steward-ownership is separating the economic rights in the company from the voting rights. 

Currently, Midwest Hazelnuts, LLC is managed by Jason Fischbach and Colin Cureton. Jason is the Emerging Crops Outreach Specialist with UW-Extension and has co-led the UMHDI since 2007. Colin is the Director of Adoption and Scaling at the University of Minnesota and leads the commercialization team of the Forever Green Initiative.

Midwest Hazelnuts, LLC is also affiliated with Overstory Ventures, a concurrent project of Cureton and Co-Founder Carolina Donoso. Overstory is a venture studio that builds companies that take new crops to market that can advance regenerative agriculture. Overstory will support the team development, capitalization, and enterprise development of Midwest Hazelnuts, LLC over the coming years.