The brand Stonewall Kitchen is a familiar term for many. American delicatessen companies is known in many places for its high-quality and very tasty sauces, jams, aiolis, etc. To date, the company sells, with its headquarters in Maine (USA), in over 40 countries . The most well-known products from Stonewall Kitchen include jams, chutneys, jellies, barbecue sauces, aiolis, mustard, dessert sauces and pancake mixes. But who is behind the Stonewall Kitchen company and how did it all start? We want to get to the bottom of these questions.
Stonewall Kitchen - from local farmers market to international size
The year is 1991 . It all started with a jar of jam that the future partners Jonathan King and Jim Scott from blueberries from their own garden. After a short time, the current founder from Stonewall Kitchen, jams for Friends and family members This encouraged the two to produce their homemade jams on a local farmers market for sale. No sooner said than done. Within a few hours Jim Scott and Jonathan King had sold all the jams – the Demand was huge . From that point on, both decided to sell their jams at farmers’ markets in throughout New England. In this way, both were able to establish a loyal fan base After a few years, Jim Scott and Jonathan King were also able to achieve their first successes in large retailers For example, in 1993 the company "Crate & Barrel" noticed the young founders and ordered 2,500 jars of orange-cranberry jam . It took It took a whole month for the two to produce the jams. In order to be prepared for larger orders in the future, the production capacity increased The two Stonewall Kitchen founders bought a old barn from the 18th century in Kittery, Maine and renovated it. A little later they moved again to an (even) larger property in nearby York (also in Maine), which is still used today as Stonewall Kitchen headquarters Over the years, Jim Scott and Jonathan King developed many new delicatessen products and thus continuously expanded their product range. The company now produces over 75,000 glasses per day and supplies via 8,000 retail locations – in the USA alone.
Flexibility was the key to success
The story of Stonewall Kitchen sounds like the American dream – “from rags to riches” - from rags to millionaire. But it was by far not as easy as it sounds. Especially at the beginning, when Stonewall Kitchen was still in the children's shoes The two founders experienced frustrating times . The newly created recipes, for example, did not always turn out as planned. The various retailers In terms of pricing policy and inadequate advertising, they often caused difficulties .
Jim Scott and Jonathan King learned relatively quickly that Flexibility is the key to success Especially with the product development The two founders had to improvise .
Would you like an example? When the two young founders were still selling their products at farmers’ markets, they quickly realized that the homemade strawberry jam not really tight and its consistency is rather fluid So Jim Scott and Jonathan King simply sold the product as Strawberry sauce . This is also one of the main reasons why the labels at Stonewall Kitchen hand-lettered The name of the product short term just To this day, the manuscript by Jonathan King the Stonewall Kitchen labels – albeit in digital form . At that time, every single label written by hand. Jonathan King always used a green pen and wrote the product name on the cream-colored label . If you look at the labels from Stonewall Kitchen If you look a little closer , you will notice that the green font and the cream-colored labels til today In the office of the two Stonewall Kitchen founders there is a large Collection of original labels . These were all scanned and digitized . From these writings, Stonewall Kitchen has created a in-house font which is not only used on the labels of new products, but also by the internal design department is used.
This is how strange product development was at Stonewall Kitchen
At the beginning of a product is the product idea – we certainly agree on that. But did you know that Stonewall Kitchen is product development not everything always went smoothly? The founders worked on a new recipe for a hearty onion compote . Provided Jim Scott and Jonathan King added to the compote Sugar The result? The Roasted Garlic Onion Jam – as we know it today. Incidentally, Roasted Garlic Onion Jam is still one of the most popular articles from the entire Stonewall Kitchen range and was presented at the Fancy Food Show in New York even excellent .
Especially in the first years of Stonewall Kitchen, the two founders had to learn to deal with the current situation and somehow come to terms with it. Big wins the company had had not yet been achieved , so Jim Scott and Jonathan King initiated barter transactions at the local farmers markets. They exchanged their homemade jams and marinades against boxes of fresh fruit and vegetables that remained unsold at the end of the day. From the “exchanged” goods, the two eventually developed new products . Looking back, one can say that the newly created products a result of what they could negotiate on the market.
Jim Scott and Jonathan King also used every trip to discovering new ingredients and try it. The development of new products was therefore largely dependent on the travel and experiences the two Stonewall Kitchen founders.
The milestones of Stonewall Kitchen
- 1991 – the birth hour by Stonewall Kitchen at the Farmers Market in Portsmouth, New Hampshire
- 1993 – the bulk order of “Crate & Barrel” makes the founders sweat
- 1995 – Stonewall Kitchen receives the award "Best in Show"
- 1998 – The first Stonewall Kitchen catalog will be sent
- 2000 – Stonewall Kitchen finally moves to York, Maine
- 2006 – Stonewall Kitchen establishes a own cooking school
- 2013 – Astronaut Chris Cassidy takes the Wild Maine Blueberry Jam from Stonewall Kitchen (which was specially filled in a space-worthy container) with into space
- 2016 – Stonewall Kitchen celebrates its 25th birthday
- 2018 – Stonewall Kitchen takes over the company Tillenfarms and agrees with one license agreement with Legal Sea Foods to
Stonewall Kitchen in Germany
We at American Heritage are thrilled to announce small part of this impressive story of Stonewall Kitchen and the impressive history of the delicatessen company. since 2005 we exclusively import the delicious delicatessen products from Stonewall Kitchen in the USA and still supply numerous dealers and end customers in Germany, Austria, Switzerland and other European countries. In this way, we also contribute to promoting the Stonewall Kitchen brand in Germany and Europe We are also very proud that we can offer our customers the sauces, aiolis, jams, etc. from Stonewall Kitchen, so that they can see for themselves the high quality and the excellent taste of the products.
