A Chat With Justin Rashid, founder and president, American Spoon Foods

CS: What about the business appeals to you?
JR: Getting into this business was the solution to wanting to live a certain kind of life in a small town in a rural area. I value living in a small town here on Lake Michigan. I value being relatively independent. Watching the seasons, living with the seasons, which are pretty extreme up here. I value the long-term relationships we have with growers. And the fun part of the business of course is creating the new. Creating new products, new ways of featuring things in our stores. I’m a jack-of-all-trades, master of none, so I enjoy the variety of challenges I have, manufacturing, retailing, cataloging, communicating the story of what we do with our customers across the country. We say every taste tells a story, and it’s a real pleasure to feel that you’re thrilling customers and that the products you make bring enjoyment to their lives. So that’s the fun part of the business. It’s of course hard to be a very small independent business these days, but those are the rewards.