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Soapworks bubbles over into retail shop

Stanley store creates outlet for local products

Jill Schramm/MDN Hannah Landry stands with some of the merchandise available in the Foxden Farms retail store in Stanley March 29.

STANLEY – Hannah Landry’s effort a few years ago to market her excess handmade goat’s milk soap has blossomed into managing a Main Street manufacturing shop, along with a retail store for herself and other hobbyist entrepreneurs.

To think it all started with two goats.

Landry, a Minot native, formerly worked in the oil industry. She and her husband, Joseph, a Surrey native, moved to Stanley in 2014 and to their current Stanley-area farm in 2016. Living on a farm enabled them to acquire chickens, raise pigs for a time and have horses and ponies. They also took two goats from Joseph Landry’s sister in Minnesota.

“Two we turned into 20 in two years,” Hannah Landry said. “It’s an addiction.”

Currently with a goat herd of about 25, the Landrys have operated Foxden Farms Soapworks for about three and half years ago, selling goat-milk soaps, lip balms, lotions, bath bombs and deodorants.

“I started just making soap in our kitchen,” Hannah Landry said. “When you make soap – when you’re small – you make it six bars at a time or 12 bars at a time. So quickly, you end up with a whole bookshelf that you have to get rid of somehow. And when all of my friends and family had multiple bars of soap, then I had to start selling it. We started selling within six months of when I made my first bar.”

The Landrys eventually set up for manufacturing their colorful, artistic soap in a building on Stanley’s Main Street. They were there for a year.

“We rented that building and then outgrew it in the first month,” Hannah Landry said. “We rented it just for production. We weren’t really planning on having the retail space.”

However, Stanley’s annual wine walk brought people into the building who voiced their interest in seeing a retail store. The Landrys decided to stock consigned handmade items from other artists and crafters as well as their own soaps and lotions.

“Everything we have in our retail store is either local, North Dakota or Minnesota businesses, or women-owned or minority-owned products,” Hannah Landry said.

As a retail outlet, space was inadequate, so in July 2020, the Landrys purchased a larger, nearby building.

The Landrys added merchandise through a wholesale company, but providing a retail outlet for local and regional home businesses is still at the heart of Foxden Farms.

“You never would know that that talent is here because they’ve never sold at vendor shows. They just did it as a hobby but they never had an outlet,” said Hannah Landry, who also serves on the board of the Stanley Commercial Club.

Among its inventory, the store carries items such as jewelry, repurposed furniture, paintings, antique pieces, pottery, books, hand-dyed yarn and crocheted items. For every bar of soap sold, Foxden Farms donates a bar to a shelter or food pantry.

The back of the new building houses the manufacturing for Foxden Farms Soapworks. Joseph Landry, also a deputy sheriff, handles the goat milking and Hannah Landry has charge of the manufacturing. Her soap-making employee is a high school student whom she describes as having extraordinary skill in making bath bombs.

Because they had extra space, the Landrys started Escape Goat Events last fall to offer a Halloween escape room experience to the public. The response locally and from as far away as Williston and Minot Air Force Base was so positive that they later created a family-oriented Christmas-themed escape room.

Currently, they have mobile, spy-themed escape games that people can come and play or rent to play elsewhere. People can book online at https://foxdensoapworks.com.

This spring, the Landrys were in the process of buying a trailer to create a mobile escape room to take to fairs and festivals.

The Foxden Farms store is open Thursday through Saturday from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Foxden Farms Soapworks also can be found at Stanley’s farmers market on Thursdays and at the farmers market on Broadway in Minot on Saturdays. Plans are to expand to the Red River farmers market with the help of Hannah’s sister in Fargo.

Foxden Farms also consigns its goat milk products in stores in Fargo and Market on Fourth in Minot and sells online from its website, where visitors can find some of the store’s consigned items.

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