{"id":17041,"date":"2025-08-04T17:17:54","date_gmt":"2025-08-04T17:17:54","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/farmers-market-mighty-mikes-foods-turns-kale-chips-into-a-fun-snack\/"},"modified":"2026-03-31T04:03:29","modified_gmt":"2026-03-31T04:03:29","slug":"farmers-market-mighty-mikes-foods-turns-kale-chips-into-a-fun-snack","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/farmers-market-mighty-mikes-foods-turns-kale-chips-into-a-fun-snack\/","title":{"rendered":"Farmers Market: Mighty Mike\u2019s Foods turns kale chips into a fun snack"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p><figure class=\"wp-block-image naviga-inline-image\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/imengine.public.prod.dur.navigacloud.com\/?uuid=b70471d4-f177-5a58-a401-041060aad308&amp;function=cover&amp;type=preview&amp;source=false&amp;width=2000\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1522\" alt=\"Mike Milakovic of Mighty Mike\u2019s Foods poses with his kale chips on July 26 at the Durango Farmers Market. (Nick Gonzales\/Durango Herald)\" class=\"naviga-image\" loading=\"lazy\"><figcaption><span class=\"caption\">Mike Milakovic of Mighty Mike\u2019s Foods poses with his kale chips on July 26 at the Durango Farmers Market. (Nick Gonzales\/Durango Herald)<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p><p>The earthy flavor of kale chips does not necessarily appeal to everyone \u2013 but <a href=\"https:\/\/www.mightymikesfoods.com\/\" id=\"link-41e26d7b0cd747a2f46a859b98779ae3\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Mighty Mike\u2019s Foods<\/a> aims to change that.<\/p>\n<p>Mike Milakovic\u2019s kale chips come in four flavors: Hoppin\u2019 Jalapeno, Poppin\u2019 Pizza, Slammin\u2019 Sour Cream and Super Cheezy.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI like taking certain recipes and making them as healthy as possible,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n<p>He said he can\u2019t eat dairy or gluten, so he wanted to create a snack that anyone could eat, including kids \u2013 thus the fun flavors.<\/p>\n<p>Milakovic called the chips \u201cadventure fuel\u201d for \u201cpeople who train hard, explore harder, and care about what they put in their bodies.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>A former Olympic hopeful in the hammer throw event, Milakovic was working in Creede as a personal trainer in 2016 and 2017 and wanted to create a snack for his clients.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cYou couldn\u2019t really find healthy food in Creede during the wintertime \u2013 it was all like ultra-processed stuff,\u201d he said. \u201cSo I bought a dehydrator, started experimenting with some different flavors, looked up dehydrated foods, and then started making the cheese flavor for them, and they loved it.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The next year he moved to Denver, expanded the number of flavors and started selling at farmers markets. The business took off from there.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThings were going well,\u201d Milakovic said. \u201cWe were in about 50-something stores.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Then the COVID-19 pandemic hit, and he had to shut the business down.<\/p>\n<p>Looking for a change of pace from the big city, Milakovic moved to Durango in April 2024. He began selling his snacks at farmers markets again and had a great summer.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt was encouragement enough to start the business back up again, and it\u2019s just been kind of rolling from there,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n<p>In addition to the Durango Farmers Market, Mighty Mike\u2019s Foods can be found at Durango Natural Foods, James Ranch Market, Nature\u2019s Oasis and several other stores in Durango.<\/p>\n<p>Milakovic said he gets all of his kale and produce from Beet Street Farm in the Animas Valley, and everything is handmade in Durango.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe mission is always going to be to support local and build a business that way,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n<p><em id=\"emphasis-f80e4eea19f635b26a2a952055a65cb1\"><a href=\"mailto:ngonzales@durangoherald.com\">ngonzales@durangoherald.com<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>gluten- and dairy-free food is made from local produce<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":17042,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[1934,438,439,28],"naviga_topic":[],"class_list":["post-17041","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","tag-farmers-market","tag-food","tag-food-drink","tag-headlines"],"acf":[],"author_name":"dh_admin","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17041","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=17041"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17041\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":20532,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17041\/revisions\/20532"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/17042"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=17041"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=17041"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=17041"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=17041"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}