When Jack Aronson began experimenting with salsa recipes in the
back room of his barbecue restaurant, he never imagined that his
product would be in more than 4,000
stores in the United States and Canada.
When Aronson hit on recipes he liked,
he began introducing
his salsas to his barbecue customers. By
1997, an owner of a
small grocery chain
asked to sell the
product in his store,
and Aronson’s Garden Fresh Salsa Co. Inc. was off and running. He closed the
dining room of his restaurant and began
making salsa in five-gallon buckets,
doing most of the work himself, from
packaging and shipping to selling.
As demand increased, Garden Fresh’s
president could no longer meet demand
from his restaurant location, so he converted an old 3,000-square-foot video
store into a manufacturing facility. But
the bigger space didn’t work for long as
the business continued to double each
year, and a few years later, Garden Fresh
moved again, this time to a 20,000-square-foot facility.
By 2003, Aronson had hired a staff to
run his business, freeing him up to develop new products. He also began
researching a way to extend the shelf life
of his product, and the result is a fresh
salsa that has the longest shelf life in the
industry.
Aronson has also expanded his product base, adding salsa, tortilla chips, pita
chips, guacamole and hummus.
And going forward, his goals include
developing organic products, introducing innovating packaging that will further extend shelf life and, potentially,
global expansion.
HOW TO REACH: Garden Fresh Salsa Co. Inc., (248) 336-8486
or www.gardenfreshsalsa.com