There is a long standing association between worms and apples, though in modern culture today we never see worms in our produce. It probably had to do with the days when fruit was grown with no pesticides and you never knew when you bit into an apple if there would be a worm or not.
Most food grown with the help of pesticides are completely uninhabitable to insects. They won’t even go near it or they will drop dead. We have all grown up with perfectly unblemished fruits and vegetables thanks to the big chemical companies. Marketing campaigns between big farmers and these chemical companies have over time led people to expect perfect-looking produce. To make matters worse, farmers and grocery stores sort fruit and vegetables and toss out anything that doesn’t look pristine.
I used to know someone who worked at a fancy natural food store here in San Francisco and was the produce manager. He told me they would open up crates of apples, oranges, lettuce and only display those that looked perfect. Anything with a mark or blemish was taken home by the employees or put in the garbage. This is still common practice today – everywhere.
So when more organic produce is becoming available why does it still look so perfect? I mean no pesticides are used but the fruit generally looks great. Why are there still no worms in the apples like the olden days?
Blenheim apricots being sorted
Sorting. Yes, people still sort. And those who do it are very good at identifying the signs of possible entry by a worm. Small holes, dark spots by the stem (an easy entry) etc. Keep in mind by the time you see that apricot or plum in the grocery store, or in a wood crate at the farmers’ market, many eyeballs and hands have inspected the fruit to make sure you are getting the best. Here are the best Blenheim apricots that have been sorted being weighed in containers destined for supermarkets.
pristine apricots being weighed
Now if you grow your own fruit and vegetables you know there are always the ugly ducklings so to speak. And there always is fruit that looks weird and that has been nibbled on, and worse yet, penetrated by hungry insects. That is life. And we just cut out the bad part and that is that. For example the Blenheim apricots we use are famous for being ugly. This is why traditionally they are sun dried. They get big black spots on them and for us we have to remove them which is time consuming. Why? Because when cooked into jam, the fruit gets translucent but the black spots get darker and look horrible in the jar. We can’t catch them all but we try. So for Blenheim apricots there are the good, the bad and the ugly. Here are the good and the ugly:
good apricots
ugly apricots
But what about organic prepared food? The company that makes that organic frozen pizza, or tomato sauce or yikes – jam – do they sort? Not as much.
Yes, the sad fact is far less sorting is done on an industrial scale of produce that is processed compared to raw produce presented to the buying public. I will never forget when I was in high school I was reading some magazine in the library and there were some statistics published about gross things you normally don’t know about. One that was burned into my mind was the FDA allowed a certain number of maggots – yes maggots – in a certain amount of canned mushrooms. Then there was a certain amount of rat poop allowed in cereal. To this day I refuse to eat canned mushrooms or cereal. And what really bothers me is I have a fondness for hot and sour soup and all Chinese restaurants always use canned mushrooms. Why? What is the matter with fresh?
Anyhow, flash forward 20-something years and I know the reality of this. The organic apricots we use to make our jam have worms in them. I would say 1 out of every 30 apricots has one this summer – more than normal for some reason. We can generally tell since we hand inspect and cut open each apricot. There are tell tale signs, but now and then a perfect looking apricot is split open with a huge fat worm inside – and all these brown bits – yeah, their poop. Talk about gross! And yes, we toss these apricots in the compost bin. These are the bad apricots. Very bad!
bad apricot
But when you get organic food that is produced on an industrial scale, where you can’t have people inspect every piece of fruit like we do, the FDA has created allowances for the worms, maggots, spiders, bits of rat poo that can be in the food. Why, because once you start manufacturing at a high enough volume, it is impossible to keep everything bad out. Even our jam, that is done so meticulously by the two of us, we are sure a few worms must slip by.
Of course, if it is cooked there is no harm. If you ever find a worm in our jam, first it is an organic worm and second it was cooked at such a high temperature it is just as safe to eat as the bits of apricot. Yeah we know, it still is gross. But we know our food has far less bad things in it than stuff made by bigger companies.
So when you are eating any type of prepared organic food you have to keep in mind you will unknowingly ingest worms and other bugs. But look on the bright side. If the fruit or vegetables were safe for these bugs to live on or in, it is much safer for you to eat than produce that is saturated with chemicals that would kill those insects.
Ugly apples, lettuce with nibble holes and spiders between the leaves, apricots with big black freckles, worm holes, worms inside, ants swarming over banana blossoms – this is all perfectly natural with natural fruit and vegetables. These insects know a good thing too – and love to eat just as well as we do. Today, we have to rethink our priorities on what is normal again. And normal is a worm in your apple – or apricot now and then.
We just got an email today from Rockport Publishing that their new book: Packaging Essentials: 100 Design Principles for Creating Packages
Yesterday we woke up at the crack of dawn to make our daily two batches of apricot jam since we had to be in the south bay later that afternoon. As is usual, this jaunt triggered two fleeting obsessions, with one winning over the other.
We stopped into a local supermarket called Nob Hill. Now I am not too fond of this chain of stores since about two years ago when I ventured into one and inquired about how to present our jam and bbq sauce for review to be sold in the store I got a curt reply: “Forget it – you gotta pay.” What this meant is like most big chains, you have to pay for shelf space. Yeah, forget that.
Anyhow, wandering around I saw on one of the signs listing what was in the aisle, “Canning Supplies” which I had never seen in a market before. My respect for the store immediately went up a few points. And sure enough, there was a whole section of jam-making supplies!
First I saw the Kerr jars and lids we used in the old days canning our stuff at home. Then there was the evil pectin which I have no idea why people use. There were all sorts. There were freezer containers for jam as well. But what they were missing, and what I was looking for, was the tongs for lifting up canning jars. Where were they?
Disappointed and dying of thirst from hours in our hot kitchen making jam, I set out for the cold beverages.
There I found a dizzying array of unusual sodas. Now neither of us drink soda often. I probably have maybe 20 a year, but I do appreciate small companies. First I had to buy a bottle of Empire Cola. Yes, I should have taken pictures… It is made in Rhode Island and that was where I was born. Any soda with high fructose corn syrup was immediately eliminated and this met the criteria. Then I got an interesting bottle called Kikapoo Joy Juice with grapefruit flavor. Yes, less than 1% fruit juice! The clincher was it had caffine in it. And finally, a Hawaiian Soda called Waialua Soda Works that was the only one that was 100 percent natural. I should have gotten the exotic sounding Lilikoi, but opted for the root beer instead. Of course we haven’t tasted any of them yet…
An hour later I was standing at the ice cream counter of a Thrifty, um Rite-Aid. Yes, they were acquired years ago but I still think of them as Thrifty Ice cream. If you aren’t from California you will be immune to the lure of Thrifty ice cream. First, it is dirt cheap, or used to be. In 1991 when I moved to SF, I paid 40 cents for a scoop at the one on Mission Street. This was a high point of my summers, along with the instant photo booth outside I always had to take pictures in. My favorite flavors were/are black cherry and Chocolate Malted Crunch.
This Rite-Aid is a very sad store where I saw a depressed-looking BMW mechanic covered in grease walk out with a huge box of pink wine – and you guessed right – drove off in a Toyota. But when I saw the ice cream I cheered right up. Apparently the 4th of July weekend decimated their ice cream inventory, so the black cherry was gone, but I did get my Chocolate Malted Crunch on a cake cone. Yes, they taste like paper, but as a kid I was banned from eating them. My parents thought the sugar cones were better tasting (and they are) but I always liked the low brow appeal of these.
Oh, it was heaven. The ice cream was soft, the malt flavor (artificial I am sure) was dominant, and then there were the weird small white balls of crunchy something – almost like tiny styrofoam balls. But you know what, as much of a purist as I am, I can appreciate something like this now and then. I devoured it and was lured back to the ice cream case. Yes, I was tempted to get another scoop, but what I really wanted to see was the scooper they use.
I love mechanical things and this definitely appealed to me. It looks like a small, shiny caulk gun. It is completely made of metal and is very industrial in strength. I had to have one! I asked the girl working there and she said they are made just for Rite-Aid. “Do people ever try to steal them?” I inquired, (immediately giving away my thoughts) and she looked at me like I was crazy. “No,” she replied and followed my eyes looking at the scoop and moved her hand holding it out of sight.
When we returned home later that night I went onto ebay looking for one. Funny considering I don’t eat much ice cream. And my worst fears came true. First, you cannot buy them anywhere. Secondly, the almost never come up for sale on ebay. There is another company that makes a similar ice cream stacker – as they are called but apparently it is no where near the quality.
And this is when I realized that the ice cream you get at Rite-Aid is visually so different. The ice cream is not in balls, but in a cylinder shape. Somehow this hits on us subconsciously since it never occurred to me it looked different before. Or me at least. By now I have given up hope of getting one.
But on my search for these scoops or stackers I encountered a new phenomena I had forgotten: ice cream molds. Now I am sure there are people of a certain age who had grandmothers who made ice cream molds, but I have a feeling this is a lost art. These molds usually follow the seasons and are event-themed. There are Santa Claus molds, Halloween cats, wedding bells, but then there are some weird ones like the shoe I saw.
For the life of me I cannot imagine why you would want a mold of a high heeled shoe. What type of occasion does this go well with? Maybe the opening of a shoe store? A shoe fetish convention? But just the oddity of it made me want to buy it.
But all my money goes to jam making this month. So forget it. And like all good obsessions, the fun has passed and I no longer am craving that Rite-Aid scoooper/stacker, or seeking out new sodas or even a high heel ice cream mold I would never use. Maybe what all I want is another scoop of Chocolate Malted Crunch…
For most people who know us, in July we are rarely seen. We work nonstop, sleep, work nonstop, sleep… you get the idea.
And while hard work is rewarding and we enjoy doing it, downtime is essential – even if it is just taking a shower or checking email, or as I wait for Phineas to wake up, typing up a few words like this.
So yesterday as I was taking a hot shower, washing out spattered apricot jam from my hair, I thought it would be fun to share some of the simple things that are nice to come home to when our free time is so scarce in July and August.
One thing we really like is the soap made by our neighbors at two farmers markets we do. Pamela and Dirk make it themselves in their home kitchen from top quality ingredients – with an emphasis on shea butter! There is always a swarm of people buying their soap and we know why: it is amazing!
We are big soap fanatics and their soap is very moisturizing compared to stuff we have tried. Everything they make is terrific but our favorites are the Lavender Shea Butter and the Sweet Citrus Shea. Check out their site and order some!
Another soap we like is an olive oil with laurel that we originally discovered in Nice. When we returned to the U.S. an internet search led us to a site that sells a Syrian version we now buy regularly. It is a style of soap called Aleppo. We order it from this website. It is badly designed so you have to search for it under the Olive Oil Soaps of the World section. It is the one from Syria. You can read how it is made here.
When it comes to moisturizing Phineas gets products from Shea Terra Organics.
This pure shea butter works miracles for dried out hands. It is very stiff in the jar but once you start rubbing it on your hands it liquifies from the heat. A little goes a long way! We also have their insanely, amazing mint vanilla lotion that smells just like Girl Scout Mint cookies.
We wished they put it in a squeeze bottle since the lotion is so thick it doesn’t pump out of the dispenser it is it. We just have to dig it out with the pump dispenser stem…but it is worth it. Trust us. Phineas swears by their oil face moisturizers, but I don’t like anything oily so don’t use them.
You can see how bathing and staying clean is the dominant theme here!
Continuing on that topic, I absolutely love the PHYTO Phytoneutre Rebalancing Cream Shampoo 3.3 fl oz (100 ml)
Phineas is obsessed with Shampoo Sweet Orange 8 Ounces
This is a local Bay Area company and is all organic. The smell of this shampoo is great and it is almost as good as the Phyto stuff in my opinion and way cheaper!
When it comes to lounge wear we are partial to pajamas.
I slept nude most of my adult life until I moved to San Francisco 20 years ago and immediately had to have a layer for warmth. For years I got pjs from Brooks Brothers. The fabric is excellent quality and there are some cool stripped and plaid patterns. They also have flannel which is imperative for San Francisco nights. However, their sizing is a little roomy. Did I say I love stripes? Anyhow, when it comes to stripes, nothing beats the pajamas from the French company Coton Doux. They also make shirts and boxer shorts that you can buy in a little store in the Marais but they aren’t that nice. What is the best are their pajamas. Everything, though, you can buy online. I am wearing some as I type these words. As soon as I come home I immediately change into pajamas. I am also seen driving in my car in them sometimes. They do run a little small compared to American sizing. So keep that in mind since the sleeves can be short. But who cares. You are sleeping or driving in them!
Finally, when it comes to taking care of your skin, nothing in my opinion beats SKII. This is an expensive Japanese skin care line I have been using for over 12 years now, and I have to skimp and save to afford it these days. In fact I am very low and not sure if I can afford to buy more now so I am feeling a twinge of panic. I buy it from a website in Hong Kong that is way cheaper than any other place. Don’t buy it in the store since it is overpriced. If you are going to buy two things get the facial treatment essence pictured above and then the signs treatment. Their eye concentrate is also killer, as is the aqua physics which is new and I love it. They used to make a C Repair which was great but not sure what happened to it. Can you see my addiction?
OK, off to make apricot jam…
Yesterday, Saturday, was the first official day of apricot jam production for us and is the beginning of a 30-day, insane, Herculean process we have founded this business on.
It started on Friday at 5 a.m., after only four hours of sleep, labeling 650 jars of bbq we had spent the prior day making. While we make the jam, we don’t do anything else and since bbq sauce is so popular in the summer, we spend a lot of time just before jam season to make enough to last the month of July. In years past we were always busy getting ready for jam and would forget to make any bbq sauce and then stores would run out. Our customers who like the bbq sauce get very mad when they can’t get their fix so now we are more organized and considerate!
In total we had to make about 300 gallons in a week since like usual everything happens at the last minute. Several stores paid us late and since we needed the money to buy the ingredients and glass and labels for the bbq, by the time we got paid we just had a few days to make everything. Welcome to our world…
By 6:30 the labels were on and all the cases of bbq had been packed and ready for pickup by our distributor later in the day. We used to deliver direct to stores with our car but we opted for a distributor so we have more time to make stuff. We never know when they will come. So our reasoning was if we get back from the farm with the apricots by 11 a.m. we should be there for them to pick up. Hopefully…
An hour later we are on the road in a rental van en route to Gilroy to pick up our first batch of apricots. We get our fruit exclusively from Van Dyke Ranch. A few days before we had visited the farm to talk about the fruit and how we wanted it picked. In prior years we would get the fruit picked straight from the trees and put in 40 lb wood crates. However the past few years we got a lot of fruit that either was too ripe or not ripe enough and a lot was wasted. This year we did what we did our first year, had them sort the fruit that was picked and put into 20 lb cardboard flats. This way we get fruit just the way we want it with less time sorting. It cost more money but it saves time. And when you have thousands of pounds of apricots that last only a few weeks in the refrigerator, and it is basically just the two of us washing and pitting the fruit, time is of essence. The lighter boxes also save our backs somewhat.
Gilroy is known as the garlic capitol, but we know of it just for apricots. As we approach the farm we see people with ladders picking apricots. This is a brutal job climbing trees and risking punctures and cuts from branches. The sun is intense so workers cover up for protection making this a very hot job. Temperatures this time of year can be in the high 90s.
When we arrive, farm it was buzzing with activity. There is a large open shed where the freshly picked apricots are being sorted and some are being pitted and cut and put on wooden trays to be sun dried. In recent years more of the fresh apricots are being sold to local supermarkets. In prior years they were either sun dried to sold to packers who canned the fruit.
Due to more rain than normal and cooler temperatures, there was less fruit this year. Our own little backyard tree had about half the fruit it normally does. But the fruit this year is beautiful. As we get out of the van the air is rich with the intoxicating smell of fresh apricots.
Roberto the foreman pulled the initial 1500 lbs of apricots we ordered from a large cooler which is basically a refrigerated truck container set right on the ground. They are perfect! Luckily the van was big enough for the pallet to be loaded in. In years past we used our car and would load up about 400 lbs every other day. It was a lot of driving and lifting and every summer we hurt our backs. We are getting smarter. Here are our apricots being loaded into the van and is the only picture we took explaining why there are no others…
Just our luck halfway back to San Francisco we get a call from our distributor wondering where we are. We ask if they can come back in 30 minutes and they promise they will. Sometimes they cannot and we have to reschedule for another day. But 4th of July weekend is popular for bbq and we want to make sure they can pick up.
We have a customer from one of the farmers’ markets we do who makes sun jam. This is an old fashioned style of partially heating fruit and sugar in a pot, but then pouring it into jars and letting it sit and continue to cook slowly in the sun. For months she has been asking us if we can get her some fruit. Luckily we remembered and have 35 lbs of very ripe fruit for her. She agreed to meet us for a pickup – just like a drug deal!
As we pull into the driveway we see her anxiously waiting. A quick exchange of cash for cots and she hurries home to make her jam and we begin unloading all our fruit. Our distributor is no where to be seen. We don’t have the luxury of a forklift so we have to case-by-case unload all the fruit from the van and carry it to our tiny refrigerator that hopefully it will just fit into. An hour later it is full and we are exhausted.
Then our distributor shows up finally and takes away the bbq sauce. Dead tried with just four hours of sleep and all the manual labor, we go home and rest.
The following morning which was yesterday, was the first day of making jam. The fruit was late this year, so normally we start June 27-30, so this is the latest we have ever started, July 3.
We dump a few boxes of fruit into a big sink and wash the fruit several times. We drain the water and then standing over the sink pick out an apricot, inspect to see if it is OK, and then give it a good twist to split it in half. We remove the pit and toss the two pieces of fruit into a bucket. It takes the two of us about an hour to do about 6 boxes, or 120 lbs if we work fast enough.
A few hours into doing this your feet start to ache, your back starts to hurt, your fingers and arms get tired and your eyes get bleary. The repetitive bending over the sink picking out apricots is probably the equivalent of doing about several thousand stomach crunches. After a few days our hands will be stained orange. But like starting to work out after a long absence, with the initial soreness, within a week our bodies will be primed and conditioned and we will be able to ignore the pain somewhat.
Once we have enough of the fruit we inspect it again to make sure there are no pits we missed. Then we weigh the fruit, dump it in the pot with the correct amount of sugar and start making jam. Usually in a day if all goes well we do two batches, but with less sorting we hope to do three batches. From beginning to end, from bulk fruit in the boxes to it in the jars, it takes us 3-4 hours per batch. Add in about 30 days of this and we will have made all the jam for the year. Words cannot express the exhaustion we will feel, but also the amazing sense of accomplishment.
Then we have the plum jams to make…
And to make matters worse, we cannot accept help from the legions of customers and people who have offered to help us out for free. Everything we do is special and we are very secretive about our recipes and processes – just like most companies.
A famous local chocolate company, Sees Candy, does not allow anyone to see how they make their candy. A friend of ours, David Lebovitz, when he was working on his The Great Book of Chocolate
One of the things that irks us to no end is how skewed the world of business is against small operations.
Classic example. Wherever you turn in terms of pricing it is all about volume discounts. You just have a little money in the bank and need to buy labels but when you order just what you need, you get smacked with the highest pricing. When you complain, they say “Oh, well if you ordered 5000 labels instead of 1000 it would be 25% cheaper.” Yeah, but then to get those 5000 labels you still need to spend more than three times the money than the 1000 labels. You just get ripped off for ordering a tiny amount.
Who knows when this unfair trend started but it needs to end. Doesn’t it make sense that the big company that orders 1,000,000 labels each month should have the funds to pay the highest price and the little tiny company like us who orders maybe 1000 should get the lowest price? Seems logical to us.
So, as a small business owner trying to grow, every turn of the way you are getting ripped off for being small. We experience this every day. Wonder why our jam is expensive? Because the glass, the lids, the labels, the sugar etc. is all priced high for our small orders. And the carrot they hold out to you is just order more, give us all your money and we will give you a break. Gee, thanks for draining our bank account. And to make matters worse, some companies have minimum orders – like you have to buy $500 or you will be smacked with a $50 fee for anything less. Seems like robbery to us.
The other evil ‘P’ is payment. Somewhere long ago a company hemmed and hawed and said they didn’t want to pay for something right away and some agreement was made they would get a certain number of days to pay. Now for average people who buy stuff like groceries and clothing, payment is necessary before you get the goods. But in the business world you get to delay things. Terms of payment can be 90 days, 60 days, 30 days, 15 days, 10 days, 5 days – whatever you want. Generally big rich companies that make lots of money make you wait the longest. We heard Costco pays every 90 days. What ever happened to cash on delivery (COD)?
Imagine going to the grocery store and saying, ‘gee can I pay you in 30 days for this bunch of bananas and toilet paper?’ How long would that grocery store stay in business? Not too long. Imagine if you went to the gas station and said ‘oh can I pay you in 90 days?’ Whoever owned that gas station would be an absolute idiot to agree to that.
But in the world of business this is how it works. Sure, most people with salary jobs get paid once a month instead of each day, or if you are lucky twice a month. And generally the money should last to pay for stuff between pay cycles. And here is the other secret of the business world. No one pays you on time so you usually run out of money between payments.
If you are used to working and getting that paycheck on the 15th of each month, and you go into business for yourself, you can kiss that reliability goodbye. You will be guessing and consulting the stars in a desperate attempt to glean when you will be paid. And when you call up those companies who are late paying you they always have some good excuse, such as ‘oh we never got the invoice’ or ‘we don’t count weekends’ so they can buy a few more days. There is one store we sell to in Los Angeles called Surfas. They offer an amazing selection of cookware and gourmet items but they never pay us on time. As of now they are three weeks late paying us. We call them every week and it doesn’t make any difference. Suffice to say next time they call to reorder we will say – forget it!
Of course for businesses who buy goods to resell, they have been trained to buy in bulk so they have inventory. The delay in paying is a fair way of giving them a chance to sell some of the goods so they can pay you back. So imagine a company that buys cotton for making socks. They buy a ton of cotton and have 30 days to pay for it. Each day if the economy is good, they are making socks and selling some. Maybe after 15 days with their markup they have made enough to pay for the cotton. The extra 15 days is just easy riding for them. Maybe they have to buy some other materials and that money in the bank helps. Where it gets tricky is if just one company is late paying, all the finances of that company can get messed up. It is critical that people are paid on time. Why do you think banks and credit card companies have legions of people on the phone 24/7 hassling people who are late paying?
If you start a business you will have to be fearless in calling up people who are late.
Instead of giving away goods you make or have for resale where the buyer doesn’t pay right away is not as economically beneficial as them paying right away. With immediate payment there is no guess work and no room for a late payment to ruin your finances. Imagine if your paycheck was two weeks late and you can see the logic.
We have one store we sell direct to who is repeatedly late paying us. As of writing this, they are 13 days late. This late payment prevented us from paying several important bills on time. We are powerless to do anything other than hassle them. Fortunately, we will not be selling direct to them – our distributor can deal with it. And this is the second problem. As you hand off responsibility to other companies there can be more room for error. If that store is late paying our distributor then people the distributor owe money to can get messed up.
It takes just one late payment to create a domino effect that can have massive ramifications to so many different people. Sometimes it seems one little business owner was late paying a bill about 100 years ago and the domino effect continues to this day.
We think the world would be a nicer place if pricing was based on how much you ordered with the lowest price with the smallest order, and that when people buy something from you they pay right away.
Most of the people we encounter at farmers’ markets (where we have the most exposure to our customers) are shocked to learn it is against the law to make food for sale in your home. Food for sale must be made in a special kitchen that is approved and regularly inspected by various government agencies to insure proper sanitation is practiced so no one gets sick from eating what is made.
This at face value is critical towards keeping the food you buy safe, but on the flip side presents massive obstacles and cost to people entering into the food business for the first time.
A few years ago there was an article about a retired WWII vet who every Christmas would make fruit cake to sell to his neighbors. He loved making it and the extra money helped him out. He made the mistake of placing a sign in the window of his house advertising the fruit cake for sale. Somehow a health inspector found out and they shut him down. There was a huge public outcry about this, but the law is the law and his annual fruit cake sales were immediately halted forever. Here is the story.
Why is food cooked in a home completely banned? Well, we are not sure how this started, but it has been a law for some time. We have heard some cities and towns are considering allowing people to make food in their home kitchens and would inspect them, but as of now this hasn’t happened. Generally a home kitchen presents a higher chance of cross contamination between personal food and food prepared for sale. Also, since the kitchen is in a home with various other people who might not be trained on safe food handling protocol, along with pets, cigarette smoke, dust, bugs etc. there is a higher chance for problems to happen then in a dedicated space just about food made for sale.
Most residential areas are not zoned for business purposes, so even having a home commercial kitchen would be a zoning violation. Commercial kitchens also have elements home kitchens do not. They usually don’t have grease traps that are mandatory for commercial kitchens to prevent excess build up of fats in the sewer lines. They don’t have special fire sprinkler systems over stoves. They don’t have special plumbing that would prevent sewage backup into sinks and dishwashers that commercial kitchens all must have. Then there are the myraid laws such as floor, wall and ceiling surfaces, ventilation, refrigeration, prep areas, the type of sinks (three section sinks are mandatory) etc. The list goes on and on.
Quite simply based on current laws, it is impossible for many reasons to have a commercial kitchen in a home.
So, if you want to break into the food business since your day job is driving you nuts working for a boss that you think is a moron, or you are out of work, it is not easy.
One of the best things to do is to find a commercial kitchen you can rent by the hour. These facilities already have all the health permits and you usually just need to prove you have insurance to cover any accidents that might happen. Since commercial rental kitchens are a rarity, it is easier to approach community centers and churches that have approved kitchens to see if they might want to rent to you. This way you can avoid the costly and nightmarish chore of buying equipment and building a facility, or buying an existing one.
If you decide to go the rental route, the insurance can be fairly inexpensive based on what you will be preparing. For us, with jams and bbq sauce, which are considered very safe, insurance is low. If you are canning tuna fish or making fresh salsa, which are more prone to bacterial growth and contamination, it can be more expensive. We use CNA Insurance, but there are others out there. Your premium will be based on the minimum requirement of coverage by the commercial kitchen you rent, and what you make.
You will also need to pass a safe food handling certification class that will be offered by your local health department. These are usually one day classes with a test at the end. If you pass the test, you are the point person for insuring all food prepared by you our others you hire conforms to health department requirements. These classes are really great. They show you pictures of restaurant kitchens that have serious violations that make you want to be the best, most sanitary food prep person around. Yes, dead rats in refrigerators, neon orange mold growing on stuff – it happens every day.
But what if you are sick of working in a commercial kitchen? They do have their disadvantages. Sometimes you show up, but they are full of other people so you have to go home. This could be a big problem if you have a deadline. Then there is the issue of them not having the proper equipment. For us, who can stuff, a basic commercial kitchen does not have the proper, specialized equipment, which made us do about 10 times the amount of work then we needed to when we first used one. There is also the aspect of theft, which can happen. Finally there is a cost factor. A commercial kitchen can range from $1o per hour per person to $50 per hour per person. It can get expensive. If you think you want to make a future out of professionally making food, at some point you will need to get your own facility. It is kinda like the advantage of renting vs. owing your own home. In the long run, owning is cheaper and a better option.
Another avenue you can go is to approach a food manufacturing company and pay them to do all the work. This is called co-packing. These are established companies that specialize in certain foods, such as baked, canned, juices etc. They do all the work and you sit back and hopefully collect enough money after their costs that it is worth your while. However, if you want to be actively involved in manufacturing and quality control, you don’t want to use a co-packer. And, just like the rental kitchen, in the long run, it will be cheaper for you to have complete control and your own facility.
Using a rental kitchen or a co-packer is a wise choice in the early phases of your business.
But what about when you are ready to have your own kitchen? What is involved?
First, you need to meet two very important requirements. You should not be prone to nervous breakdowns and you need to have a lot of money. The process of designing and building a facility is daunting and can take years. There are millions of details that require a lot of thought and experience to work out. For us, just trying to find a company to make a small machine to fill our jars took months. There are consultants who will take your money in exchange for giving you expert advice, but out of all the people we talked with none of them seemed knowledgeable. Even experts in their field could not answer many of our questions. Basically, you will need to figure out everything yourself and become an expert on very esoteric subjects no schooling could ever teach. For example, what are the advantages/disadvantages of pneumatic equipment vs. electric? Yes, that is gobbleygook to just about everyone, but you will have to learn all about it yourself from talking to all kinds of people. That is just the tip of the iceburg.
Then there is the issue of what equipment to buy. Sure, we all know when we buy a car or a refrigerator the major brands. There are Hondas, Fords, BMWs, VWs for cars; Kenmore, Subzero, GE for refrigerators. There are tons of websites with customer and expert reviews to help you make a decision. Or you can just ask friends. But what about when you need to buy a commercial dishwasher and you never heard of any of the companies that make them, or you need to find a machine that can screw on caps, or a labeling machine? There are no resources available with reviews for commecial equipment like there is for consumer equipment. You are basically stuck looking at technical data or calling up similar companies that make what you make for advice. And generally companies are tight lipped about their equipment. No one wants to tell anyone what they are using for some reason.
Then there is the cost. Commercial equipment is always many times more expensive than consumer stuff. That dishwasher you see at Home Depot for $200 seems affordable, but when the cheapest commercial dishwasher you can find is $3000 that is a big jump. And yes, you cannot use that Home Depot dishwasher in a commercial facility since commercial dishwahsers must have special sterilizing features that absolutely no comsumer dishwashers have. Same goes for refrigerators. Commercial refrigerators are designed to always maintain a constant temperature, whereas consumers ones do not. For food inspectors, and for certain foods a constant temperature is critical. Can you see what a hassle it is to learn this stuff? Can you see how it gets so expensive?
Then there is the issue of construction. For your house you can get the local handyman to do work, but what about when you need to have special duct work custom fabricated for your ventilation which is required (you must have exhaust and fresh air). Sheet metal workers, commercial electricians, plumbers etc. are all union shops and their rates are substantially higher than the residential contractor. Don’t get me wrong. We support unions, but this is another factor you have to take into consideration. What you might think would cost $800 to do in your home is more like $3000 in a commercial building. A good general rule is to multiply by 4 what you think it will cost. $50,000? No, more like $200,000.
Welcome to the world of owning a business. Spend big money and hope some day to make big money. Hope, that is the key word. All businesses are expensive to start, but manufacturing is the most expensive. Do you have what it takes?
So, if you are considering jumping into the food business drop us an email. We are always willing to help. We have learned everything from trial and error. And we are learning every day, and spending lots of money. So buy our jam and stuff. We got a lot of bills to pay!
We have been shopping at farmers’ markets many years before we started this jam business, so we now have both the outsiders’ and insiders’ perspective on these unique shopping experiences.
For most people who start shopping at farmers’ markets there usually is sticker shock to some degree. Yes, you can find food vendors where you can get more potatoes than you can shake a stick at for $2, or a bag of oranges half the price of anywhere else. But on the flip side, there are farmers who charge several dollars a pound for pristine peaches and apples. And these price whoppers are what everyone complains about but no one has ever explained.
First off I want to examine the mentality of shoppers at farmers’ markets. When we used to rise early Saturday mornings to visit the Embarcadero farmers’ market, which was originally in a parking lot, and many years ago moved to the now glamorous digs of the restored Ferry Plaza, we would load up on cash from the ATM trembling with excitement on what amazing things we would find.
This eagerness to spend is a completely different mind set from most people in grocery stores. When you are at the grocery store you usually have a list of things to buy, or just ran out of eggs for a cake you need to bake for a birthday party and have rushed to buy them. Shopping in the grocery store, while still exciting is much more a routine activity like going to work or brushing your teeth. Farmers’ markets are like gong on vacation – something you don’t do as often,where you feel much more spontaneous and is a place usually full of surprises. We can personally attest that our spending habits are much more frenzied and carefree at farmers’ markets than in the grocery store. So, pointer number one: people are usually in an amplified spending mode at farmers’ markets.
Back in the day, we would usually pull out about $40-$60 in cash from an ATM and would usually run out of money in the first 10 minutes at the market. It always amazed us how fast the money went. I am sure for most of you reading this you are familiar with this experience. And, for most people going to a farmers’ market they know this will happen and somehow justify this immediate lack of funds as a sign it is wise to leave otherwise you will blow an equal amount almost instantly if you visit an ATM again.
The upside of draining your bank account and pockets of cash in record-breaking time, is the amazing things you have purchased that have an air of rarity to them. Where else can you buy pumpkin blossom honey, uncured olives, strange heirloom melons, or miners’ lettuce? And this is the primary reason people shop at farmers’ markets: to buy things they can get no where else and that are not found in their grocery store. Pointer number two: rarity.
Another advantage of farmers’ markets is freshness. The basil you just bought a massive pile of for $2 was just cut early that morning instead of the tiny wilted pile at the grocery store that looks a week old, or the carrots and radishes still coated with wet clumps of black, rich soil that are more crunchy than any you have purchased in the store. Pointer number three: freshness.
So are rarity and freshness worth a high price? To people like us we think so and we are willing to pay. But we still can complain how fast we drained our allocated farmers’ market funds which leads me to believe it isn’t the price so much but the amazing selection of products that tempt us to spend more than in the grocery store with the usual suspects we have been seeing displayed since we were kids.
But how about the farmers who charge a fortune for an apple or peach? Isn’t that robbery? Isn’t that taking advantage of the poor schmucks pulling up in their new fancy cars, with their special farmers’ market hand-woven baskets they never seem to use in the grocery store, who as I said are trembling with excitement on spending their cash? Not really.
On the flip side the people selling at the markets have priced their products according to a wide range of criteria. First, many of the farmers who sell at markets are smaller operations than those who sell to grocery stores. Maybe they have 10 acres of land compared to 60 or 100 or 200 acres and rely almost exclusively on markets for income. And when you are a farmer who has a small lot of land, you grow less and therefore make less money. The only alternative when you have limited product is to raise the price to increase revenue. It is just common sense. Compare this to the farmer who has 10 times as much land and it is obvious how they can get away with charging less since they have much more product to sell. It is the same economics behind the pricing at Costco compared to your corner store.
Also, for farmers and small food producers, selling at the farmers’ market is a rare chance to sell direct. Most farmers rely on selling to stores, or as is usually the case, a distributor who resells it for a small profit to stores. When you sell wholesale, you usually make 50 percent less then when you sell direct. So farmers are excited for the opportunity to sell direct to the public and get full price for a way of living which is usually in stark contrast to those shopping at farmers’ markets. How many farmers do you see driving around in a new BMW or Mercedes, who own a well appointed house in a desirable neighborhood, and can afford to take a few weeks off each summer for a trip to Europe with their family? Being a farmer, and a small crop farmer especially, has a completely different income than being in the corporate world. Also farming income varies year after year depending on crop yield, what crops they planted and what they can sell it for. A long period of rain, snow or cold weather can decimate a crop that when picked supplies most of their yearly income. What do you do when you were expecting to sell $100,000 of oranges and you only picked $30,000? How do you pay your farm equipment loans, your line of credit for supplies, your mortgage?
So right off the bat you should never moan and groan about the price you pay direct to someone who grows or makes something because usually they earn less than you do and usually this is a rare chance for them to make some extra money – cash even.
Another factor at farmers’ markets is farmers have to pay a fee each day for selling at the market. Sometimes that is a percentage of what they sell and sometimes it is a flat fee. Among all the factors that go into pricing you have to remember some of the money farmers make that day at the market have to be paid to the association that gives them the opportunity to be there. And when there is a rainy day when no one shows up, or maybe a big event nearby that keeps the usual crowds from coming to the market, the $400 they were expecting to earn in 5 hours of selling is now $150. And usually they still have to pay the fee to be there meaning somedays after paying gas to travel from the farm and the rental fee for that day to sell, they have almost enough to buy movie tickets for a night of escape and that is it. Days like that are very depressing – especially if you were relying on a certain amount of money you desperately needed for an upcoming bill.
We know. Since we started doing farmers’ markets we have seen the ups and downs of income that simply never happen when you have a job with a regular pay check. This past winter and spring California had an unusual excess of rain. Since we were in a drought that was much needed. But for selling at farmers’ markets, when it seemed to rain every day, almost no one would show up and we made hardly any money. And just like farmers we started doing markets since selling wholesale to stores was not making enough money to pay all the bills on time. We were hopeful this extra income would make up the difference, but the only thing we got out of it was standing in the rain and wind hours on end for month after month for nothing.
Next time you are wandering around the farmers’ market keep in mind that those standing in the booths, with their feet killing them, and in the colder months, freezing to death, are not getting rich doing this. The extra money they charge for their extra fresh, extra rare and delicious products is truly a bargain if you think about all the work and sacrifice that went into it. And the one thing you probably don’t know is the cash you hand over, trembling with excitement, or maybe begrudgingly after finding out the price, is more appreciated than you could ever imagine.
It makes perfect sense as a San Francisco-based food manufacturing company the majority of stores selling our products would be in northern California, but after two years of trying to get into stores in southern California we are beginning to think there is some unspoken, unseen barrier between these two regions. It really seems food-wise, California is two states.
Here is a good example. About two years ago, Whole Foods approached us about selling our apricot jam and bbq sauce and we said yes since we shop in their stores. However, for California, Whole Foods breaks the state into two regions, north and south and has northern and southern offices that deal with these areas. We were invited to the northern region and it has been a great experience. However, we have lots of customers in southern California who have been asking us for years to buy our stuff in Whole Foods. So, we did what we were told and applied to the southern CA Whole Foods to sell our products. Their grocery buyer rejected us – twice – and she offered no explanation. Luckily, we are sold in four amazing, independent stores in the Los Angeles area: The Cheesestore of Silverlake, Monsieur Marcel, Surfas and Thyme Cafe. But really, four stores in two years of trying? In Northern California we are in about 20 times that many stores.
We have spent a lot of time driving down south, visiting stores, offering samples and store owners and grocery buyers are enthusiastic about what we make. But there is one big problem: distribution. How do we get our stuff from San Francisco to a store in Los Angeles?
We have two distributors in northern California (Tonys Fine Foods and Cheeseworks), but have been unable to find anyone in southern California to distribute our stuff to stores. There are two types of distributors: regional and national. The regional distributors like the two we have concentrate on a small territory and are very competitive among each other. The national distributors have massive reach, but generally only do business with vary large food manufacturers. We have asked stores down south which distributors they recommend and generally they are national ones that have ignored us. We haven’t had any luck finding a distributor in southern California for some reason – as if none exist.
So how do we get the jam and bbq to our four LA stores? We either drive the jam and bbq sauce down by car, have friends who are up here visiting from LA drive it down and drop it off for us, or we ship via UPS. In fact, we just shipped 216 lbs of jam and bbq sauce to one of our LA stores via UPS – just because we don’t have a distributor down there. It took us half a day to pack things up.
If you are reading this and live in California, especially the southern region, and are wondering why welovejam, a California-based company, that buys almost all our ingredients and supplies from California farms and manufacturing companies, is not in your local store, keep in mind we don’t have an answer for you. Maybe someone does? Until the future day when we are in more southern California stores, you will have to do what most customers do, buy it from our website.
Yes, this surely is a sensational headline. If there were an equivalent food publication to the Star or National Enquirer, this little ditty would be right at home.
When we made about 100 jars of jam from a backyard tree it made perfect sense. I mean, we had more apricots than we could eat or bake, so why not pick them off the tree, wash them, pit them and toss them in a pot with some sugar, cook them up and add them to clean jars? Sounds pretty easy and it is. On a small scale.
So what is the dirty secret? Frozen fruit.
In the years since we turned a backyard summer hobby into a full-time business we have learned a lot about food manufacturing and it isn’t very pretty.
When we transitioned from making jam for friends and family to trying to meet demand from customers, we did only what we knew how to do. We made more. Instead of 100 lbs of apricots from our tree, we would buy from a local orchard 6000 lbs and do the exact same thing. We would wash the fresh fruit, pit it and toss it in a pot with sugar, cook and can it. But the massive jump in the number of apricots and jars created extreme stress. Fresh fruit, we all know, only lasts so long in a refrigerator, and Blenheim apricots last about 3 weeks if you are lucky. What that means is we have about a month at most to make all the jam we can for the entire year.
For us, who don’t have the funds to pay legions of minimum wage employees to do the work for us as we sit beside the pool at some far flung vacation home, or even in an office, we do all the work ourselves and get some friends and family to help. And quite honestly, we would never have it otherwise. There is a zen in simple things and making jam for us is a blast now that the initial growing pains have subsided. Every tiny detail makes a tremendous difference. It is like saying if you kill that butterfly something bad will happen 20 years from now. Well for us, how we make our jam is an intense passion that we hate to admit, we could never trust anyone else to do as well.
So here comes the ton of bricks. Since we have learned from every mistake imaginable how to run a food business, we have also learned jam making around the world is virtually and exclusively from frozen fruit. And it makes perfect sense. Why limit yourself to a few weeks to make a product that has to last you all year? Twinkies are made every day of the year all year round. So is Wonder Bread, and probably most stuff you buy in the grocery store – even gourmet things. In in the jam word, it is always made from frozen fruit so they can make jam 7 days a week 365 days a year to supply global demand.
On top of that many people don’t actually make the jam themselves, let alone other food brands. They rely on copackers – companies that specialize in making a certain type of food. All you do is give them your recipe and they take care of everything. We know some local jam makers who rely on copackers. But as we said, we don’t trust anyone to do it as well as we do. That is why we took the leap to build our own small manufacturing facility so we have complete control. Sure it cost a fortune and we have been broke ever since, but in the long run it is worth it, just like owning your own house in the long run is better than renting.
But face it. Businesses have to grow. And to grow you have to sell more product each year. And if you happen to be a jam maker you are extremely limited in growth if you can only work a few weeks out of the year no matter how many employees you can hire, or fancy machines to automate hand work.
So you see we entered a business we had no idea had a frozen ceiling. To make big bucks you need to transition from home made style jam making in a short period of time using fresh fruit to frozen fruit that can be thawed and cooked into jam virtually 365 days a year.
But there is a huge difference between fresh and frozen as we all know. How many of you eat frozen food each day? And how many of you think frozen fruit, vegetables and prepared food tastes as good as fresh? Not many I am willing to bet.
The coin toss for any budding business owner is whether to stay true to flavor or stay true to growth and profits. We are contrarians. We believe there are people who are willing to pay more than bottom dollar to avoid eating garbage. How many times did you rave about a frozen dinner? Sure it is cheap and easy. But in the scheme of pleasure, and health, freshly prepared ingredients taste better, and maybe we are idealists, but they make for a better life.
We have learned from experience that quality of life in the long run is better than shortcuts just to make a quick profit. Quality has a pace of its own and has far richer rewards in more ways than one. The cheap way out will never produce rich results.
Some of our local jam makers have confessed to us they use frozen fruit. It is so much cheaper, so much easier they say and it tastes the same. They don’t have to stress out making everything over a small amount of time and spending tons of money up front to buy all their yearly supplies (jars, labels, sugar, fruit etc. add up to a monthly cost of around $20,000).
Even some farmers have said we should freeze the fruit but we haven’t even done a test. As experienced food experimenters and cooks, we know already there is no mistaking the elegance and transient sensation of fresh over dulled frozen. Whoever thinks frozen is just as good as fresh have no good sense of taste or they are deluding themselves that the easier way out tastes better to them.
The people who started Smuckers jam probably like us started in a home kitchen and used fresh fruit. Somewhere along the way it transitioned to frozen fruit and rock bottom prices that would entice anyone to buy it no matter how poor they might be.
We don’t make any excuses. Our stuff is expensive. And it costs us a fortune to make it every summer. In fact, the cost essentially ruins us for the entire year. Yes, any MBA grad would say that is a mistake. On paper it probably is, but on your tongue it will make you swoon. A blind taste test will make us come out first anytime over frozen stuff.
We all know a hamburger on a backyard grill made by a friend tastes better than any McDonalds burger. And we know the birthday cake made by your mom tastes better than anything you can buy for $9.95 at Costco or the supermarket. Why? Because the ingredients in mass manufactured food are the worst tasting, least healthy, cheapest garbage. For big companies profits come first, taste second.
They say James Joyce would spend an entire day to write a few hundred words until he was satisfied. The world is divided between those who understand this and to whom it makes no sense.
Anyhow, for what it is worth, we will never use frozen fruit, and our jam will always be made by us. Nothing will change. Our stuff is the closest to home made that you will ever buy. Yes, we are fools to some, but we have our standards and they set the bar for everything else.