One of the biggest challenges we face as small food producers is our unbending rule to use fresh and local ingredients for our products. You’d think sourcing fresh ingredients is a common approach in our industry but it isn’t really at all.

The reason you ask? Well, depending on the brand (and by this I mean many food brands) they really don’t care about what you put inside your body. They’re only concerned about their bottom line and sales. We, on the other hand, worry and care so much that we went and created our own supply chain. That’s how concerned we are when selecting fresh ingredients to use in our products. Obviously, we do care about selling too but we prefer to maintain our integrity throughout the, at times grueling, process.

For example, we will opt for shiitake over white button mushrooms all the time. Fresh tomatoes will always rule over tomato paste. (Fun fact: China is the largest importer of tomato paste on the entire planet.) Local hydroponic basil throughout the winter months over imported basil from South America is what we prefer. Minimally processed Demerara sugar is the only sugar we will use in our kitchen and bleached sugar never stands a chance. Fresh local kelp farmed by lobster men and women on their off-season is far more impactful vs sourcing from overseas. Single origin extra virgin olive oil from Calabria, Italy will always beat out olive oil blends so long as we’re in charge of making the sauce.

Being an ingredient focused food brand has its ups and downs, for sure but when you get to prove all those naysayers in our industry wrong for saying it can’t be done when producing products, it is SO worth all the struggles because we’ve proven that it most certainly can be done, so long as it’s done thoughtfully.