Matt Dykema of Elmwood Township is a Suttons Bay class of ’96 and Great Lakes Culinary Institute grad who worked in many of the region’s great kitchens (The Boathouse, The North End, Lulu’s, Fig’s, The Good Bowl, 9 Bean Rows, The Cooks’ House…) before purchasing ERG! energy bar company from its local founders Dennis and Katy Bean-Larson last spring, along with a handful of investors.

The cold-pressed, small-batch fruit and nut bars — which are sold wholesale and online — are made in a zero-waste kitchen in Traverse City. The former chef put his own touch on the Bean-Larsons’ original recipes for inspired flavor combos — including coconut lime, sunflower fig, and cherry chocolate (read one smitten fan’s take here). Dykema says being a Northern Michigan brand is key to ERG!’s growth (more on that below) and shares with the Leelanau Ticker that ERG! hopes to “start a line of THC and CBD bars within the year.” Here’s more:

Buying ERG! is kind of a slant rhyme on your culinary background: I got out of the restaurant industry before the pandemic, and it’s scary when you’ve only been doing one thing for 20-plus years. I learned from a friend — and now business partner — that Dennis and Katy were ready to sell ERG!, which they started in 2011. I went to work with them and was blown away…and surprised that there are no ovens: it’s all raw, pressed and cut.

So, you were ready for a leap of faith? Yes, 110 percent. I have some partners involved here in Northern Michigan and one in Wisconsin, who is in the potato business. Our mission is to promote Northern Michigan — and obviously to be successful, but we want everyone who attaches to us to be as successful. Being a Northern Michigan brand is huge. We manufacture here, we ship from here, we use local cherries, blueberries, apples, and honey, and shop Oryana for other organic ingredients. And if Michigan ever grows nuts, I’ll buy them.

You have investors, but for the day-to-day it’s just you? Yes, I have one person who helps me in the kitchen as her side hustle. We work with Cherry Capital Foods and are working on some distribution deals downstate and more here locally. The cool thing about being a one-man-show and being from this area: you know which stores are the center of town, like Anderson’s in Glen Arbor, The Merc in Leland. I worked at The Merc as a teenager — I don’t know if you have ever been downstairs there, but that’s where the history of Leland is. Stuff from the 70’s and 80’s…the unofficial recordkeeping of Leland summers.

Was The Merc your first job? My first was a Sugar Loaf ski tech. We called ourselves ‘the radical rental people.’ Sugar Loaf was cranking in the 90’s!

And you grew up in Northern Michigan’s restaurant scene too? I was a dishwasher, busser, waiter, bartender. I did it for long time and I got sick of it. But I saw that I could be myself in the kitchen. Even though I couldn’t make soup or even turn on the stove, Jim Morse, the chef at The Boathouse, gave me a shot. He was so into what he was doing he stayed in a tent next door so he could tend to things in the kitchen overnight. I learned a lot and it gave me my passion. After a couple of years cooking in Montana, I came back and was a sauté chef, learning from Randy Chamberlain who now owns Blu. He taught me how to be patient with people. He also taught me to make it through the industry by stretching, because you are young now…but once you get to 40 and 50, you better start taking care of your body.

Wow, sounds like many in the culinary community here were mentors and friends: Nic and Jen Welty at 9 Bean Rows, I don’t know how they do it. I know they only sleep four hours a day. Nic’s brilliant — with four degrees — and Jen’s the same way. I watched Nic: he never walked, he always runs, and there were no machines on the farm, everything was by hand. Fig [Bryon Figueroa] and I just hit it off, we were boys. He’s like family. And I worked for Pauli [Penning] up at The North End in Northport, and developed a taco menu with Pauli. I slept on the beach in Northport, and I was the focus of many village council meetings. There were no places to live; as a restaurant person that has to be the worst thing about Leelanau County. I worked full time and it wasn’t my choice to be homeless; the places I got to rent were for short stints. I was lucky enough I had people in Northport, some of the Pointers, that would let me crash at their place.

You found your people, then? It’s such a small community, the really cool thing we did — with a few friends — was every Monday we would just get together and make food. We had dinners and we invited whoever. Sometimes we chose people because they were on opposite ends [politically]; we had this feeling that food brings people together. One of our rules was you couldn’t make anything ahead — you had to do it there. As a chef I would help people. We wouldn’t eat until 11:30pm and set it down at a big table: Spanish dinners, Portuguese, dishes based on your favorite band, the favorite dish your grandma made.

You mentioned northern Michigan is a big part of your brand: You work and then at 5pm you go hike your dog at Lake Michigan or go in the rolling hills in Kingsley or Buckley — that’s why we live here. This is ERG!

Who’s your market? I’m an athlete, I’m a big biker. Timber, my dog and I do a lot of hiking. I go climbing, spelunking, caving, but just because I do that doesn’t mean that is the [niche market]. It's for people who want organic, healthy, not processed food, made with things you can read. In the culinary world that’s just something I believe in. It's for people who are forgetful like me. Also kids. Student athletes. Hospitals. A lady in Marquette who is is a beer distributor wanted to buy bars for her distributors as they are driving around. I see it being an ever-expanding market.

Where are you headed next? We’re now in 19 states and over 240 locations. We ship to Canada, Hong Kong, Australia, all over the United States. We just started to get into Grand Valley state University in the student athlete nutrition hub. One of my partners is the Piedmonte family at Dunegrass. Within the next year we're also going to be introducing a CBD line and a THC line. I think by this time next year we should have either doubled or tripled our production and growth over this year.

Pictured: Matthew Dykema and Timber