Let’s say you came up with an idea for a food company in January. How long do you think it would take you to launch? Maybe a year? 18 months? If you’re Aidan Altman, the answer to that question is five months. FIVE MONTHS, PEOPLE! Insanity. Aidan and his co-founder, Shannon McGlynn, dreamt up their company, Spice Foods, with a few characteristics in mind: transparency, altruism and health. It’s true that Millennials generally think we’re the bees knees [thanks mom and…
(Photo credit: Judy Kim) One went to culinary school. The other didn’t. One had a baker as a dad. The other grew up eating dry chicken and overcooked broccoli. Their culinary paths couldn’t have been more different. And yet, they both ended up working side-by-side at one of the best restaurants in New York City: Eleven Madison Park. After years of browning butter on stovetops in restaurant kitchens and serving it to their friends at dinner parties, the lightbulb went off and they decided…
When Hansen Shieh was eight years old, his obviously awesome (wait for it) mom took him out for lunch. As he bit into his first Sichuan pepper, his mouth exploded in flavor and heat. And his mom, the badass that she so clearly is, just laughed at him. Now, some 30 years later, Hansen is on a mission to bring the kick of Sichuan and other flavors, including Chinese fermented black bean, tamarind and fish sauce to the mainstream with his…
(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…
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…