(Photo: Janelle Jones) Mike Kurtz is a pretty laid back guy. Even though he’s experienced things that most people only dream about, he approaches them all with a quiet nonchalance that would make you think he’s spent his life working down at the corner store. This isn’t a bad thing. In fact, I admire how naturally he’s allowed his life to unfold, and the obvious gratitude he has for where his path has taken him. In 2003, Mike was living…
(Photo credit:Meredith Jenks) When Scott Norton and his co-founder, Mark Ramadan, were in college, they had a thought: why are American consumers totally chill about their ketchup? After all, the stuff we all grew up on is loaded with junk like high fructose corn syrup, canola oil and tomato paste. But instead of going back to bonging beers and eating take-out pizza like most college kids would do at this point, they took their concept a step further and asked themselves, “What…
Anarchy In A Jar started with humble beginnings but has now blossomed into a jam company that anyone would be proud to write home about. For starters, the ingredients come from local farms, the founder, Laena, is handcrafting each batch out of Brooklyn, NY, and everyone from the NY Times to Saveur to that food blogger you follow religiously are singing Anarchy’s praises. Not. too. shabby. Plus, Laena cleared this little confusing ditty up for me, which basically was the highlight of my…
Zesty Z is the brainchild of founder Alexander Harik, who pitched the idea to his family at the dinner table. They promptly laughed him off before taking him seriously. But unlike the other ideas he’d dreamt up in the past, the one for Zesty Z stuck. Here’s how he describes the lightning flash that led to where he is today: “Why don’t we just take mom’s recipe, change it up a little bit, make it ready made, come up with a…