The Widget - Development & Trading Company, LLC.

OUR LEADERSHIP

David Martin, CEO
David is a graduate of Morehouse College, Atlanta, Georgia and Rutgers University School of Law, Newark, NJ. His professional career has spanned over 35 years, and has included some of the following Positions: Partner, Ascension Real Estate Development, Inc., (real estate developer); Partner, Martin & Martin, Attorneys At Law; Deputy Director of the Corporations Division, for the Secretary of State, State of Georgia; General Counsel, H.J. Russell & Co., Inc., Atlanta, Georgia (BE 100).

In the food industry he is President of Home Style Foods, LLC, and Gotcha Goat, LLC. He has travelled and presented Products in Brazil, Japan, Chile, Canada, Mexico, and several other countries. He was featured in the December 2010, issue of Black Enterprise Magazine, “Tapping the Global Markets”, regarding exporting sausages to Brazil. He was also featured in the January 2011, issue of the Georgia Trend Magazine, “The Art of Sausage Making”. He has been a returning guest on CNN’s American Morning.

He and his wife Frances are featured in the fall issue of Focus Magazine, a publication of Fort Valley State University, “Meating a Demand”; and in the August 15th Atlanta Magazine Newsletter, “Getting Goat to a Clamorous Public”. They are also featured in the summer issue of Flavors Magazine, “Gotcha Goat”. David is a life member of Kappa Alpha Psi Fraternity, Inc., and Vice Chair of Georgia Food Policy Council.

Frances Martin, Chairman of the Board
Frances is a graduate of Drexel University, Philadelphia, Pa. with a BS in Design and Merchandising. She has an MBA in Finance and a Masters in Project Management from Keller University. Her experience includes 10 years as Executive Director of an affordable housing development company, where she led a team to construct multifamily housing sites for the homeless and mentally challenged adults. She then spent 4 years leading the Marketing division of Home Style Foods to increase the market share of the company.

She has directed the creative division of Home Style Foods in every aspect of developing the brand, including marketing, presentation and sales in the USA and to international buyers. She has worked in every level from processing to brand development with the Gotcha Goat Brand products. She and husband David work with national and international organizations to present our clients’ brands. Widget DTC has presented client products (such as Home Style Foods) to markets in the US and abroad in Brazil, Mexico, Canada, and Japan. Frances is an active member of the Georgia Grown Program and Southern United States Trade Association (SUSTA).

WIDGET PRESS RELEASES

Tapping the Global Markets

Black Enterprise magazine

David Martin was cooking up what was perhaps the meal of his life.

Inside an Atlanta hotel, the president and CEO of Home Style Foods L.L.C. wanted to impress a delegation of Brazilian business people brought to the U.S. in 2008 to identify American producers of food products. Home Style Foods, an Atlanta-based processor and distributor of turkey, pork, and chicken sausages, has had a local following since the business opened in the mid-1990s, but Martin felt the best way to take the business to the next stage was to look beyond the U.S. shores. Read More

Get Your Goat

Flavors magazine

Through his company Gotcha Goat, LLC, local entrepreneur David Martin hopes to grab the global goat market by the tail. For the past six years, Martin, along with partners Bruce Dobbs and Frances Martin, has been working with Tuskegee University, Fort Valley State University, local farmers, state and federal politicians, and USDA representatives to develop the only branded goat meat effort in the country.
Read More

Meating a Demand

Focus magazine

If you go grocery shopping at your local Kroger store, and have the taste for goat meat, there is a chance some of those cuts may have a "Wildcat" taste.

It is because Fort Valley State University's Meat Technology Center has developed a partnership with the Gotcha Goat company based in Ellenwood, Ga. Read More

Goat Meat: The kids are all right

The Economist Magazine

IF YOU buy a goat from your friendly local halal butcher, he will leave the heart, liver and kidneys attached. Offal spoils quickly; if it passes the sniff test, the meat is good.

Few Americans want to take that chance. Ask a typical American what he thinks of goat and he’ll imagine “a gnarly-looking old billy goat with long horns on top of a car chewing on an old tin can,” says J.J. Jones, an agricultural economist at Oklahoma State University. Some may believe it has a gamy flavour. This is true of older goats, but a young cabrito has a clean, grassy, herbal flavour, sweeter and less greasy than beef. It also boasts fewer calories and less cholesterol than beef, chicken, pork or lamb. Read More

Bermuda is a “nutter” world

The Royal Gazette Online

“Bermuda is another world” or so go the lyrics to the Island’s unofficial national anthem. Or is it: “Bermuda is a nutter world”? According to some new cleverly packaged peanuts promoting Bermuda, it’s the latter.

The tongue-and-cheek. ten-ounce tins of nuts come adorned with labels that look like vintage Bermuda postage stamps and say “A Nutter World” over a picture of the Islands laid out in legumes. Ink stamped on it is the flavour, which states Salted or Island Fever Hot ‘n Spicy Blend. Read More

Entrepreneur of the Week: Home Style Foods Reaches Beyond U.S. Borders

Cascade Patch

For more than a decade, Home Style Foods have provided its loyal customers with quality smoked sausages. Now it plans to diversify and expand beyond U.S. soil.

David Martin wanted a product he could sell.

After working years as a corporate and real estate attorney, Martin chose to bite into the multi-billion dollar meat market. Read More

THE ART OF SAUSAGE MAKING

Georgia Trend

CONSIDER THE WONDROUS SAUSAGE BISCUIT: A THING OF SIMPLE BEAUTY, with browned bits of spiced pork between fresh-baked bread. Those of us who are old enough, and came from an agrarian background, remember when it was a part of a much larger breakfast – every single day, with eggs and juice and coffee and jam. Farm-style eating is hard to kick, even when you’ve transitioned into a white-collar world – but it quickly catches up when you’re no longer plowing the north 40 after sunup. Read More

Getting Goat Meat to a Clamorous Public

Atlanta Magazine

You may not be aware of it, but the demand for goat meat in this country far exceeds the supply.

As ethnic populations in the United States grow—and as the traditionally bland American palate grows more adventurous—interest in this global staple has grown too. The most widely consumed meat in the world, goat (aka cabrito, capretto, chevon) holds a place of honor in many cuisines, including Chinese, Indian, Mexican, Jamaican, Greek, and Persian. Problem is, there’s not much of it available in the United States. Most goat meat sold here is imported, frozen, from Australia and New Zealand. Americans who raise goats—for show, dairy or meat—are accustomed to calls from consumers in search live animals for slaughter. - See more at: Read More

MEDIA INTERVIEWS

CNN | Why some companies are hiring, some not

CNN Morning Segment