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Combat Military Veterans Building A Food Business That Builds Hope (PODCAST)
(This is a repost from last year which I feel is important to share again). In honor of Veteran’s Day, in today’s podcast we’re talking with the Chief Marketing Officer of a veteran-owned and run small food business.
TRANSCRIPT:
Jennifer:
I don’t typically share straight business stories on this Podcast series, but Rumi Spice’s story really caught my attention, for reasons that you’ll see in a minute. I knew this was a story you had to hear.
By way of background, Rumi Spice is a food focused social enterprise, founded by a team of US Military combat veterans. They import saffron directly from rural Afghan farmers in an economic partnership. By connecting Afghan farmers directly to the international market they seek to catalyze market driven economic development one farmer at a time.
The Rumi Spice processing facility in Herat, Afghanistan employees 75 Afghan woman who are paid direct wages. In addition, saffron is more and more becoming a viable alternative to growing opium, which is both a security and economic problem plaguing not just Afghanistan but the international economy. By cultivating for-profit business, Rumi Spice is helping to lay a foundation for long term peace in Afghanistan.
Emily Miller, who we’re speaking with today, is co-founder and CMO of Rumi Spice. Emily thank you so much for joining us, really appreciate it.
Emily:
Thank you for having me.
Jennifer:
To begin with, I particularly wanted to feature today’s interview around Veteran’s Day because of both your and your co-founder, Kimberly Jung’s, military background.
Would you mind sharing with our listeners a bit about your military background?
Emily:
Yeah, absolutely. Kimberly and I first met at West Point, we were both classmates, class of 2008. We graduated and were engineer officers in the army as 2nd lieutenants. Both of us had very different experiences in Afghanistan. I was serving on a Special Operations Team; I was one of the first women to go out on night raids with Special Operations and work with women and children. Whereas Kim spent her deployment as a Route Clearance platoon leader, so she was actually looking for improvised explosive devices on the side of the road.
Very, very different experiences in Afghanistan, but we both took away a very common thing which was kind of a love for the Afghan people and for the country itself.
Jennifer:
Was there a moment when you or Kimberly, when you guys were in Afghanistan, when you started to develop an idea of that would later become Rumi Spice? Or was is it you took away with you kind of a love for the Afghan people and sort of kept that in the back of your mind, but didn’t necessarily think that you might wanna start up a business that would somehow integrate with Afghanistan?
Emily:
When we were in Afghanistan we didn’t have the idea specifically for Rumi Spice or saffron particularly. We did have this frustration with … We just didn’t feel like we were making an impact, a long term impact in the Army. Kim always talks about how she would go out with her platoon, she would clear a roadside bomb and then within a few hours another one would be in it’s place kind of thing. That’s a little bit how it felt in the Army. We would go out on these night raids, get bad guys, but the very next day more bad guys would pop up.
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By Jennifer Lewis(This is a repost from last year which I feel is important to share again). In honor of Veteran’s Day, in today’s podcast we’re talking with the Chief Marketing Officer of a veteran-owned and run small food business.
TRANSCRIPT:
Jennifer:
I don’t typically share straight business stories on this Podcast series, but Rumi Spice’s story really caught my attention, for reasons that you’ll see in a minute. I knew this was a story you had to hear.
By way of background, Rumi Spice is a food focused social enterprise, founded by a team of US Military combat veterans. They import saffron directly from rural Afghan farmers in an economic partnership. By connecting Afghan farmers directly to the international market they seek to catalyze market driven economic development one farmer at a time.
The Rumi Spice processing facility in Herat, Afghanistan employees 75 Afghan woman who are paid direct wages. In addition, saffron is more and more becoming a viable alternative to growing opium, which is both a security and economic problem plaguing not just Afghanistan but the international economy. By cultivating for-profit business, Rumi Spice is helping to lay a foundation for long term peace in Afghanistan.
Emily Miller, who we’re speaking with today, is co-founder and CMO of Rumi Spice. Emily thank you so much for joining us, really appreciate it.
Emily:
Thank you for having me.
Jennifer:
To begin with, I particularly wanted to feature today’s interview around Veteran’s Day because of both your and your co-founder, Kimberly Jung’s, military background.
Would you mind sharing with our listeners a bit about your military background?
Emily:
Yeah, absolutely. Kimberly and I first met at West Point, we were both classmates, class of 2008. We graduated and were engineer officers in the army as 2nd lieutenants. Both of us had very different experiences in Afghanistan. I was serving on a Special Operations Team; I was one of the first women to go out on night raids with Special Operations and work with women and children. Whereas Kim spent her deployment as a Route Clearance platoon leader, so she was actually looking for improvised explosive devices on the side of the road.
Very, very different experiences in Afghanistan, but we both took away a very common thing which was kind of a love for the Afghan people and for the country itself.
Jennifer:
Was there a moment when you or Kimberly, when you guys were in Afghanistan, when you started to develop an idea of that would later become Rumi Spice? Or was is it you took away with you kind of a love for the Afghan people and sort of kept that in the back of your mind, but didn’t necessarily think that you might wanna start up a business that would somehow integrate with Afghanistan?
Emily:
When we were in Afghanistan we didn’t have the idea specifically for Rumi Spice or saffron particularly. We did have this frustration with … We just didn’t feel like we were making an impact, a long term impact in the Army. Kim always talks about how she would go out with her platoon, she would clear a roadside bomb and then within a few hours another one would be in it’s place kind of thing. That’s a little bit how it felt in the Army. We would go out on these night raids, get bad guys, but the very next day more bad guys would pop up.