The Business of Food with Steve Alexander

Sarah Frey was the youngest of 21 children in a blended family, and was the last of her siblings left on the family’s 80-acre farm near Keenes (population ~ 100) in southeastern Illinois. In elementary school, she would help her mother sell homegrown produce to local grocery stores. As a teenager, Sarah expanded the business. Pulling a trailer with her pickup, Sarah dropped off pumpkins, melons, and other produce at grocery stores and Walmarts in the area. In the audio clip below, Sarah tells WGN’s Steve Alexander about the day some 30 years ago when she noticed a Walmart distribution center being built near Olney, Illinois, and thought it would make her life a lot easier if she could just make one delivery there, just 50 miles away, rather than at individual stores. Sarah stopped in one day and met a woman who would become the manager of produce for the center. “She asked me if I could deliver truckloads of produce, of watermelons, and cantaloupes, and pumpkins, and things I was already selling to their stores, and I said ‘Absolutely!’ And I shook her hand and walked out of the DC (distribution center) that day, a teenage kid, and thought, ‘This is great!’ And then I realized she wasn’t talking about my pickup and my trailer that I’d been delivering to their stores in, she was talking about semis. And I thought, ‘Oh my gosh, I don’t know how to drive a semi!'”

She learned, though, and four of Sarah’s older brothers came back to the farm to help her grow the business. Today, Frey Farms is recognized as the nation’s largest producer of pumpkins, but Sarah says they actually grow more watermelons than pumpkins. And while Frey Farms grows the traditional orange Halloween pumpkins by the millions, Sarah has had her eyes set on another market. She has grown to believe that America is ready to cook, not just carve, pumpkins, and heirloom pumpkins have become a thing. She is hoping that eating pumpkin year-round, like much of the rest of the world does, also becomes a thing in the U.S. To that end, she started Pumpkins of the World, a line of the heirlooms (which, much like heirloom tomatoes, come in many different colors and odd shapes). She notes that in Australia — the origin of her favorite variety of eating pumpkin, the Jarrahdale, a blueish-gray savory pumpkin — people eat pumpkins much the way we Americans eat potatoes.

Sarah was crowned, so to speak, as the “Pumpkin Queen of America” in an article about Frey Farms in the New York Times.

“He doesn’t even think Taylor likes football,” jokes Sharon Pferschy, co-owner of Garlic Breath Farm in suburban Chicago, about her 14-year-old pet pot-bellied pig Kevin Bacon’s jealousy of Travis Kelce’s relationship with Taylor Swift. What is not a joke, is how hard people work to put on farmers markets each week across the country. In the audio clip below, Sharon tells WGN’s Steve Alexander about a recent Instagram message she and her husband, Tony, posted as a “thank you.”

“If you’re ever at a craft show or a farmers market, you will likely see a smiling face behind the table, with lots of neat products. What you do not see is:

Days, and sometimes months, it took to grow, make or design the product; Time spent figuring the label; Staying up late (a lot) to make more product; The constant setting up and taking down of that damn tent; Praying someone will buy your product; Later-praying people will stop buying your product so you can eat a bite of food because you are starving; Missing family parties over and over because you are working weekends; Business–just one more thing to disagree about as a couple.

“So when you see folks standing there under a 10×10 ten on the weekend, please take a moment to understand that what is on that table is not just a product. It is likely their heart and soul for the world to see, acknowledge, appreciate, or dismiss.

“Fellow vendors, farmers and small business owners….THANK YOU.”

Sharon and Tony were working in the aviation software business when they spotted a small farm near Elburn in 2015, “a micro-farm,” and decided to become garlic farmers, and settled on the catching name Garlic Breath Farm. The farm motto declares: “If everyone had garlic breath, no one would be offended!” 

Two of the hot button issues regarding motherhood are being addressed on a 45-foot-tall billboard in Times Square: breastfeeding in public and using formula instead of mother’s milk. It’s a billboard for Bobbie, a formula company started and run by moms. On the billboard is Molly Baz, whose previous huge billboard in the square was removed for being too racy. What was racy about it? The Times Square ad censors deemed her bare, very pregnant belly, a rhinestone bikini, and two lactation cookies covering her breasts were too much for the masses to handle. Really? In Times Square, where women’s bodies are sexualized on billboard after billboard?

In the audio clip below, Kim Chappell, chief brand officer for Bobbie, tells WGN’s Steve Alexander about the new billboard in Times Square featuring Ms Baz. It shows her lying on her side on her kitchen counter, shaking a bottle of Bobbie organic formula while at the same time her baby is nursing on her bare breast. The ad censors said that was OK. “The only thing we were told was no nipple. We said, OK, that’s fine, we can show breastfeeding without showing a nipple.”

The ad was designed in-house at Bobbie and filmed at Baz’s home in Los Angeles. It reinforces two key statistics: one in five mothers feel ashamed or judged for breastfeeding in public, and 70% of parents use some combination of formula and breastfeeding. But Bobbie is a formula company and knowing that not every mother can or wants to breast feed, Chappell says, “When that mother or parent, for whatever reason–whatever reason, they’re all valid–has to turn to formula, they should never feel an ounce of guilt or shame.”

Chappell says the response has incredible, with more than a million views in the first few days. It’s a big splash for a small company that was started by a group of moms in 2021. Bobbie sells its formula to subscribers, and Chappell says the company never sells more formula than it can make: A certain amount is set aside for each subscriber, guaranteeing there won’t be a shortage, such as the major formula companies saw happen in 2022. “We were the only formula company in the U.S. whose customers did not face an infant formula shortage,” says Chappell.

In 1916, a beautiful Mediterranean Revival building was finished at what became the South Shore Country Club. The 65-acre site on Chicago’s Lake Front at 71st Street was created as a social and recreational haven for white Protestants. No Blacks, no Jews, and for many years, no Catholic Italians. Times changed and the country club went out of business in the 1970s. The Chicago Park District purchased the golf course and the grand old building, and it became the South Shore Cultural Center.

Fast-forward to October 9, 2024, and Donnell Digby opened the first Black-owned restaurant in that buildings doing to the Cultural Center’s offerings for the community. In the audio clip below, he tells WGN’s Steve Alexander about the sense of obligation he feels to the Black community in opening the restaurant he named NAFSI 1916. NAFSI means “soul” in Swahili. He says that’s the value around which NAFSI’s was built. He describes the food as a luxurious spin on classic soul food dishes such as shrimp and grits, fried green tomatoes, surf and turf, beignets, chicken and waffles, and more, designed by Executive Chef Dondee Robinson, formerly of the Bronzeville Winery. “That kid knows his way around the kitchen,” said Digby. The full bar will offer wine, beer, and spirits, leaning heavily on local and minority-owned brands. Digby says prices for appetizers range from $9 to $21 and entrees range from $19 to $55.  

DIgby says NAFSI 1916 is opening the doors to a once forbidden space that all people will be able to enjoy, with beautiful and luxurious spaces, including a year-round patio bar, just a stone’s throw from Lake Michigan.

There are many efforts to find work for people who are autistic or deal with other neurodivergent challenges, such as ADD, ADHD, dyslexia, dyscalculia, and related disabilities. But Stannum Core Solutions, a Chicago-based company, focuses on finding those people careers, not just jobs. In the audio clip below, Stannum Core Solutions founder Ben Schatzel tells WGN’s Steve Alexander that his company partners with employers, mostly across the manufacturing and healthcare sectors, to engage with a neurodiverse workforce. He says there are a number of companies eager to create accessibility and best practices for neurodivergent adults, but lack the understanding to do that. He says Stannum Core works with companies to identify positions that are best suited to be filled by the neurodivergent. And, for neurodivergent adults looking for work, Schatzel says Stannum Core is always recruiting for various roles with different employers.

Gilster-Mary Lee, an Illinois-based food manufacturer with 2500 employees making private label food at plants in southern Illinois and Missouri, embraced the idea of hiring neurodiverse adults, and currently has 18 who are thriving in their roles, working alongside neurotypical employees. Gilster-Mary Lee was honored October 1, the beginning of National Manufacturing Month, as the first company to be designated as a Spectrum Certified Employer. Schatzel says Gilster-Mary Lee has taken on the challenge of creating competitive, integrated employment opportunities for the neurodiverse, rather than the sub-minimum wage, pay-per-piece type of work most often seen in neurodiverse hiring at other companies. Gilster-Mary Lee CEO Tom Welge tells Alexander there are currently 18 neurodiverse employees who are valued members of teams making products like macaroni and cheese dinners, baking mixes, and other products right alongside employees who are not neurodiverse. Welge says they are great employees who typically have great attitudes and want to be successful and do a good job every day, and are full-fledged members of the company.

Farmer John Moody marked National Farm Health and Safety Week (September 15-21) by remembering the winter day when he drove his tractor to a pasture to feed the cows on his Crockett, Virginia, farm. It was the day after his 70th birthday. On the front and back of the big tractor were huge, round bales of hay, each adding about 1,500 pounds to the weight of the tractor. In the audio clip below, John tells WGN’s Steve Alexander how he parked the tractor to open the pasture gate, and “when I turned around to get on the tractor, here come the tractor!” John tried to jump on as it rumbled toward him, but “the back wheel caught my right leg and pulled me under and it ran over me.”

Agriculture is not only our most essential industry, it is our most dangerous. The National Education Center for Agriculture Safety notes the number one cause of fatalities and injuries are tractors.

John was alive, but thought he was paralyzed. He couldn’t move is legs. But the gate was open and the cows were coming, so he dragged himself to the gate and pulled it shut before they could get out. And then he waited. He didn’t have a cell phone, and the country road–not heavily traveled any time of day–was especially quiet during mid-morning when neighbors had already gone to school and work. But John knew that eventually the mailman would come, and an hour or so later, Allen Dix drove up in his mail truck, just as he had day after day for the past 18 years, saw John’s tractor, but didn’t see John. Allen got out to investigate and found John lying in a ditch. “John, are you OK?” he asked. Dix says the farmer replied in a matter-of-fact manner, “No, the tractor ran over me.”

Dix did have a cell phone and dialed 9-1-1. and then dialed John’s wife, Debbie. The mailman says John was being very nonchalant, asking Debbie what she was doing, and carrying on as if he were just calling to check in. That’s when Dix took the phone back and explained what had happened and that rescue crews were on their way. While they waited, a neighbor happened by and he and Dix fixed the fence the tractor had torn down, and Dix drove the tractor back to John’s farm yard.

The local hospital wasn’t able to deal with all of John’s injuries, which included a right leg broken in two places, his pelvis was fractured in three places. Because of the accident he had to have a hip replaced. Where the weight of the tractor ground him into the gravel, a big rock went into his knee, which had to be cut out and left a hole in his knee. Doctors theorize that the reason John isn’t dead is that when the tractor ran over his mid-section and leg, it changed directions slightly and spared the rest of his body. The local hospital realized John’s injuries were too severe for them to deal with and flew him to Wake Forest Baptist Hospital in North Carolina. He spent 15 days there.

When John went home, neighbors did what neighbors do, especially in rural areas, it seems. They fed his cattle and did other chores around the farm; they brought food and supplies to John and Debbie; and in one instance that still gets John choked up when he describes it, a neighbor built a ramp into the house for John’s wheelchair. The injury forced John out of the cattle business, but he admits that he had been thinking about it anyway.

As for Allen Dix, he was honored at a ceremony in Washington, D.C. with the United States Postal Service Hero Award, and his name was added to a wall of heroes at the USPS headquarters. In the audio clip below, Dix says he doesn’t like being called a hero. He says he just did what anybody else would have had they come by and found John.

Dix continues the same 75-mile mail route six days a week, and says he, and all mail carriers, notice things when they’re making their rounds: mail piling up and other signs that something may not be right. “Are we being nosy? Well, maybe a little bit but we can kind of do a wellness check to make sure people are OK.” He often sees John, who is back in the cattle business. John says it got lonely without the animals on the farm, so he bought a few.

And as we mark National Farm Safety and Health Week, John Moody says: “Don’t do what I did.”

It is common for immigrants to Chicago to bring with them something from home; a custom, a food, etc. In the mid-1880s, Carl Jeppson emigrated from Ystad, Sweden, to Chicago’s Swedish area at that time near the intersection of Clybourn Avenue and Division Street. What he brought from home was Malört, a liquor with a bitter aftertaste that has become a joke that Chicagoans play on unsuspecting visitors. (“Try it, it’s the Chicago thing to do!)

In the audio clip below, Tremaine Atkinson, CEO of CH Distillery, the current maker of Malört, tells WGN’s Steve Alexander that Malört blossomed during Prohibition because of its medicinal qualities: It killed intestinal worms, a problem in the days before refrigeration and other food safety advances. Also helping Jeppson skirt scrutiny of the enforcers was their conclusion that nobody would drink his bitter concoction recreationally.

Atkinson describes the “Chicago Handshake,” a shot of Malört andand talks about unsuspecting visitors are told, “This is a very Chicago thing to do, and then getting the fun of watching people’s reactions to this very unusual, bitter liquid.”

Atkinson says Malört is more popular than ever thanks in part to social media where people have posted Malört-isms, such as “Malört, when you want to unfriend somebody in person,” and, “Malört, for when you know you’re not getting your security deposit back.” There are many that are not suitable to be posted here.

Malört is still made the way Carl Jeppson did, soaking wormwood (which CH Distillery imports from Sweden) in alcohol. Atkinson says wormwood is more like a stalk of wheat than it is a “wood” or tree. Atkinson says Malört is often used in cocktails, much as bitters are. He especially likes it in Pina Coladas. (Cue a Malört version of Rupert Holmes “Pina Colada Song” where you insert your own Malört-influenced lyrics.)

When asked if he knows anyone who actually likes Malört, Atkinson said he does. “Its funny to talk seriously about the flavor of Malört, but it’s got a little sweetness up front, and then its herbal and citrusy, very much like a grapefruit, and maybe five seconds in is when you start to get the bitter, and if you don’t have anything else that bitter hangs out for a good 15 minutes, and I kind of enjoy that journey.”

CH Distillery makes more than Malört. It uses rye and wheat grown in nearby Kane County to make CH Vodka, the only vodka that is handmade from Illinois grain. Atkinson’s decision to buy Malört from a family that had owned the Jeppson brand for nearly 100 years and had moved production to Florida was brilliant. Malört is stocked in virtually every bar in Chicago and is a great door opener to get CH’s other products into bars and liquor stores.

It started with a TV camera catching Iowa State football players Tommy Hamman and Caleb Bacon standing next to each other on the sidelines, the names on their jerseys reading: “Hamman Bacon.” A fan posted it and tagged the Iowa Pork Producers Association asking, “Can we get an NIL deal for these guys?” In the audio clip below, Kevin Hall, the pork association’s communications director, tells WGN’s Steve Alexander his answer was, “Heck, yeah!” and from that was born the 2023 NIL Deal of the Year.

Hall says a glance through the rest of the roster found Miles Purchase and Tyler Moore, so they now had “Purchase, Moore, Hamman, Bacon.” And a deeper dive found players Alec Cook and Zach Lovett. “So what do you do after you purchase more ham and bacon?” asks Hall. “You cook it and love it!” The video went viral — although that’s not a word pork producers who are constantly fighting to keep their herds bio-secure are fond of — and had more than two million views in 12 hours. Altogether, the campaign reached more than 20 million people just on social media, with traditional media coast-to-coast picking up the story. Tee-shirts were printed. It was a huge response that marketing execs can only dream of.

That was last year. Will the IPPA be able to pull off a repeat? Hall says all the players are back, except for Tommy Hamman, who gave up football to focus on his engineering degree but will still be part of the campaign.

In addition to paying each players for his name, image, and likeness, the IPPA donated a total of $10,000 worth of pork to food pantries selected by the six players. The combination of philanthropy, fun, and creativity won the NIL Deal of the Year award from Sports Business Journal. Hall said the campaign was even bigger than the IPPA had hoped for, and was not only a win for the players — whose NIL money is being doubled this year — but for their local food pantries, Iowa State University and pig farmers.

By the way, I resisted clever wordplay around “pigskin,” a common nickname for the football. The history of that is a bit disgusting, but early “foot” balls, likely used for soccer matches long before the first college football game in the U.S. in 1869 between Rutgers and Princeton, were made of inflated pig bladders, which were more round than elliptical like today’s football. That is why footballs got the nickname “pigskins.” Pig bladders fell out of favor (no doubt to the delight of the people who were tasked with blowing them up for each game) later in the 1800s when inflatable rubber balls came along, followed by the leather from cowhides used today.

When Michelle McBride saw the drink choices available for her children as they began getting involved in sports, she was dismayed at the amount of artificial ingredients and sugar. She tried giving her kids “natural” sports drinks, but they wouldn’t drink them, plus Michelle discovered they weren’t any more effective at rehydration than water. So, she went to work on making her own and discovered the answer in Mother Nature’s near perfect hydrator: milk. In the audio clip below, Michelle tells WGN’s Steve Alexander that she discovered milk has a unique combination of electrolytes not found anywhere else. And milk, by itself, is more hydrating than the big brand sports drinks. So, she and her team of scientists figured out how to extract the electrolytes and nutrients from milk. They use ultrafiltration to come up with a clear liquid that’s the basis for GoodSport. In the years since, GoodSport has gotten scientific validation that it hydrates better than Gatorade and Body Armor, and just as important for a small company that has a minuscule marketing budget compared to the big brands, pro athletes and teams have been seeking out GoodSport. The most recent is Jonathan Owens, a safety for the Chicago Bears. He was having muscle cramping issues because of a sickle cell trait, which he’s disclosed, and was looking for something that would help him hydrate better. He heard about GoodSport, tried it, trained with it, saw a difference in his performance, and reached out to Michelle. Owens is now an ambassador for GoodSport, or as Michelle says, “He’s truly a member of the team.”

GoodSport is also the Official Hydrator of the WNBA Chicago Sky, and other pro teams, athletes, and trainers.

It isn’t just better hydration that Michelle is passionate about. As a sports mom, she has seen too much bad behavior, especially by parents and coaches. So, partnering with other organizations, GoodSport is getting the word out that youth sports is not all about the win. Sports develops life-long lessons that are so important, and youth sports should be a safe place for children to learn, fail, and get back up and try again.

Residents of Chicago’s Austin neighborhood knew they were living in a food desert because they had only three grocery stores. Then one closed, leaving just two sources of fresh food compared with 23 liquor stores. Now, a brick and mortar store, operated by high school students, has been built at 423 N. Laramie on the site of a former liquor store. Austin Harvest will be open Tuesday-Thursday year round. And as important as bringing fresh and affordable produce to the neighborhood is, what the market does for Austin teenagers is more important. In the audio clip below, Rodney Williams, who grew up in Austin and is now the By The Hand Club’s Director of Entrepreneurship and Economic Development, tells WGN’s Steve Alexander that the club, an after school reading program, targets students who are most in need, those who are failing. He says the turnaround is impressive, not only in the students’ grades, but in the responsibility they assume in running nearly every aspect of the produce market; ordering, stocking, pricing, janitorial duties — they do it all. Williams praises the dedication and focus of the students, and says as a mentor he knows he won’t be getting a call in the middle of night that his kids have been shot, or that he’d see them hanging around street corners late at night.