AMERICAN SPOON CELEBRATES ITS 25TH ANNIVERSARY!!

American Spoon, the artisanal specialty food company founded in 1982, is one of the first to have emerged during the pioneering years of the regional American food and cooking movement.

Known for fruit-rich preserves made in small, copper kettle batches, the company began when Justin Rashid, a Northern Michigan wild food forager and Larry Forgione, an innovative New York chef, partnered to produce the best preserved fruits in America. They started out with two copper kettles in the rented basement of a Petoskey, Michigan candy store and moved into a downtown storefront a year later. Since then, American Spoon has grown to be recognized nationally for an award-winning array of specialty food products: preserves, fruit salsas, fruit grilling sauces, relishes, condiments and dried red tart cherries sold through six American Spoon retail stores in Michigan, the spoon.com web site, their unique mail order catalog, and many of the nation’s upscale food retailers. The American Spoon Café opened in Petoskey next door to their original store in 2001.

From its headquarters at the Northern end of a region known for the world’s most prolific tart cherry orchards, the company remains deeply committed to supporting a number of small, local family farms that grow prized fruit varieties for the company’s most celebrated products. The Early Glow Strawberries for the company’s renowned Strawberry Preserves are cultivated on a single centennial farm in Michigan’s Leelanau Peninsula. American Spoon’s Red Haven Peach Preserves (and more recently their Cherry Peach Salsa) are made with hand-peeled peaches grown on a single Western Michigan farm for over twenty years. The Bartlett pears in their Golden Pear Preserves have always come from one Northport orchard planted in the 1920s, and for two weeks in August, the year’s supply of Harlayne apricots from Jelinek Orchards are hand-pitted for preserving in the company’s kitchen.

“We have succeeded by doing the opposite of what a large food company would do. We seek out the most delicious varieties and prepare many of our fruits by hand. We cook in small batches, put as much fruit as possible into every jar and pay higher prices for exceptional fruits — prices that help to sustain these dedicated growers. As a result, we capture flavors and textures that aren’t found anywhere else.” Rashid says.

American Spoon also continues to go to great lengths to source rare, wild fruits. It contracts with local residents in the Keweenaw of Michigan’s UP (Upper Peninsula) to pick precious wild thimbleberries. The company has dozens of people across Michigan’s Northern Lower Peninsula who forage local wild blackberries and wild elderberries. An almost forgotten fruit, wild elderberries are de-stemmed by hand, crushed, steamed and pressed in an antique cider press to make a purple-black jelly that was once a favorite on Midwestern farms.

The authenticity and uniqueness of American Spoon products stands out. Most recently, American Spoon Early Glow Strawberry Butter was named Best Artisanal Condiment by the Gallo Family Vineyards Gold Medal Awards in April of 2006. American Spoon and its founders have also been recognized with the coveted James Beard Award, American Catalog Award, the National Association of Specialty Foods Gold Award, and The Detroit News Michiganian of the Year Award, among others.

American Spoon looks forward to continuing its work of preserving America’s most delicious fruits while maintaining the timeless connection between the farmers who grow, the artisans who preserve, and the people who enjoy these special foods.

For more information, please contact Noah Marshall-Rashid at Noahmr@spoon.com , 800-222-5886 ext 3032, or Justin Rashid at JRashid@spoon.com , 800-222-5886, ext 3003.

American Spoon Foods Inc., Petoskey, MI 49770, www.spoon.com

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