The Jersey City Independent "

This story also appears in the Winter 2011 issue of NEW magazine.

Sara Marshall-Schkade’s salsas were born out of homesickness. Unable to find Tex-Mex food in Jersey City, the native Texan began to experiment. When she lost her job in corporate communications in 2009, she started to devote more time and effort to developing recipes and building her specialty foods business.

“When I lost my job, I could’ve just packed up and went home,” says Marshall-Schkade, founder of Saucy Sara’s Salsa. “I started to think about this and realized that I have a niche market for my salsas here. In Texas, starting another salsa company would be ridiculous.”

The National Association for the Specialty Food Trade (NASFT) defines specialty foods as “foods and beverages that exemplify quality, innovation and style in their category.” According to this year’s State of the Specialty Food Industry, these foods represented 13.1 percent of all retail food sales, with total sales at $70.32 billion in 2010.

One Jersey City-based specialty foods company, Fizzy Lizzy, has even won a very high NASFT honor: the silver sofi (short for “specialty outstanding food innovation”) award.

Fizzy Lizzy, Saucy Sara’s Salsa, and other local specialty foods businesses – with their versions of products like hot sauce, beef jerky, and kombucha – have taken advantage of farmers’ markets, festivals and welcoming retailers to share their products with an eager public.

Jersey City has seven farmers’ markets, a few of which run May to December. Jersey City residents can also find fresh and specialty foods at a number of festivals held throughout the year: Creative Grove Artist Market, Not Yo Mama’s Craft Fair, and the Hamilton Park BBQ Festival are just a few.

“The markets at Grove are really what signaled to me that the specialty foods movement was alive in Jersey City,” says Joshua Kace, founder of Jersey City-based beef jerky company SlantShack Jerky.

In July 2011, 26-year-old Eric MacNeil sold his first bottle of JC Hot Sauce at the Creative Grove Artist Market, which takes place every Friday afternoon at the Grove Street PATH Plaza. He says his goal is to make an array of hot sauces as diverse as Jersey City’s population.

“I put some samples on the table, and the first person who tasted it said it was really good,” says MacNeil. “It felt good to see that someone appreciated the time I put into it.”

By September, MacNeil had accumulated a local fan base. One woman told him her son had finished a bottle in just two days and that she’d be coming back every week to buy a new bottle.

Aaron Morrill, CEO of beverage company Fizzy Lizzy, believes that placement and location at these festivals can mean the difference between good and bad sales. Morrill and wife
Liz, the company’s founder and namesake, have showcased their all-natural, award- winning blends of fruit juice and carbonated water at both the All About Downtown Street Festival and the Hamilton Park BBQ Festival.

“For us it’s really important that we’re right where the food is,” says Morrill. “You need to place yourself by the food trucks, where people are eating. We get great feedback when people taste the product. We rarely see anyone scrunch their faces or frown when they take a sip.

“When we do get a negative response,” he adds, “it’s usually because the person is used to drinking soda.”

Marshall-Schkade has also worked hard to get the best positioning at festivals, but bad luck with press coverage and lack of transportation have been two of her most recent challenges.

After exhibiting at the Hamilton Park BBQ Festival, she was disappointed to find that a reporter from a local publication had left her name out of an article. Marshall- Schkade also sells at the Riverview Farmers Market, but not having a car prevents her from showcasing at most other markets. “If I had a car, I would be all over the place,” she says.

Local retailers like the Downtown Coop, Subia’s Market, Basic Food and Beverage, Hudson Greene Market, Liberty Towers Gourmet Market, and the Warehouse Café stock specialty products by local entrepreneurs. Some store owners even vouch for the entrepreneurs behind the products by helping them network with influential leaders in the community.

“Mary Suliburk at the Downtown Coop is a huge fan of my product,” says Marshall- Schkade. “The people at the Coop are fantastic. They’re very supportive, and they love my salsa. She’s even gotten in touch with me when someone influential bought my product.”

Some retailers, eager to have unique and local products on their shelves, seek out these specialty foods. For example, Barcade in Downtown Jersey City approached Kace and his team to propose a possible partnership. Now, SlantShack Jerky is available for purchase at the bar. Says Kace, “Barcade actually emailed us before we got a chance to go make a sales pitch. Match made in heaven.”

Selling specialty items in a city where consumers can already find a wide variety of brand-name, nationally recognized foods and beverages is a challenge, but these specialty food vendors believe that their products have something new and worthwhile to offer the market.
When Marshall-Schkade first began experimenting with her recipes, she didn’t believe she was doing anything out of the ordinary, but family and friends encouraged her to pursue her hobby.

“I’ve always made my own homemade pico de gallo and guacamole. I began to dabble in salsas. I would take them to parties and give my landlord and his wife any leftovers,” says Marshall-Schkade. “On my fridge, I keep a note from my landlord that says, ‘You should patent this immediately!’”

Though she made some of her first batches at home, Marshall-Schkade now rents space in a Jersey City Heights commercial kitchen she shares with a few other people. And she wasn’t the only entrepreneur in town motivated by job loss. After MacNeil lost his job in 2010, he applied his degree in mechanical engineering from Stevens Institute of Technology to the art of creating recipes.

“When I first started writing out the recipes, I pretty much looked at them like chemistry experiments,” he says.

MacNeil still works from his home kitchen, which he shares with two roommates, one of whom does not like spicy food. He says, “It’s not that messy, but it makes the entire house smell like peppers and makes some people irritated. I don’t need a lot of tools, just a pot and a blender.”

Kace, who also lives with roommates, named his company after his Jersey City apartment. SlantShack Jerky pays homage to the apartment’s uneven floor.

Though now headquartered in Long Island City, BAO Kombucha was born two and a half years ago in the basement of a house on Jersey City’s Jewett Avenue. Says co-founder Mike Schwartz, “Our house has a full bar in the basement. Some people in the neighborhood think it used to be a speakeasy. It’s particularly suited for brewing.”

BAO Kombucha offers seven flavors of kombucha, a fermented tea-based beverage; three flavors of fermented vegetables; raw hot sauce; and raw ketchup. All these products are “live,” which means they contain the probiotic bacteria culture, a natural preservative. According to NASFT, “functional beverages” – a beverage that has special nutritional benefits – is the fastest-growing specialty foods category.

Schwartz, who has lived in Jersey City with his wife for eight years, has been a consultant for Two Aprons and a now-defunct food truck. As a result, he has a very realistic take on what aspiring restaurant and food business owners battle when they try to open in Jersey City. Permitting processes can sometimes be arduous. Regardless, he remains optimistic about Jersey City’s growing consumer market.

“Eight years ago, I don’t think I could have sold my kombucha anywhere in Downtown Jersey City. Americans in general, specifically the under-40 crowd, have become much more aware of what they’re putting in their bodies, which I think is great,” Schwartz says. “But the people who really need the nutritional benefits of kombucha are the ones who are financially struggling. The hardest part is to get my product, which is costly to produce, to that crowd.”

At the end of the work day – which sometimes happens in the middle of the night due to commercial kitchen scheduling constraints – these specialty foods entrepreneurs know that they wouldn’t exist without their consumers. Kace is always making improvements to satisfy customer needs and desires.

“We recently got rid of the trace amounts of MSG and high fructose corn syrup in our marinades,” says Kace. “We’re also starting to sell a maple glaze option for the jerky. Maple glaze and garlic is a particularly big hit.”

Producing and selling specialty foods in a city in the shadow of one that “never sleeps” requires a competitive spirit. Morrill admits that Fizzy Lizzy’s biggest competitor is a beverage brand called Izze, which is owned by PepsiCo and sold at Starbucks. While Fizzy Lizzy drinks contain pulp, Morrill describes Izze’s beverages as resembling little more than “colored water.”

Without added sugars or preservatives and with an average of 60 percent juice per bottle, Fizzy Lizzy is a healthy alternative to soda, but Morrill finds it challenging to convince consumers that both quality and healthfulness have value. Rather, customers usually want to be impressed by the taste.

“People are fairly cynical about quality claims because they hear them all the time,” Morrill says. “It’s hard to get a lot of mileage on a quality claim. You can only make that meaningful after they’ve looked at the product and tasted it.”

The competition may be humbling, but these entrepreneurs thrive on a good challenge.

“I think Jersey City is a very difficult part of the country to live in. It’s not easy,” says Marshall-Schkade. “Here, nothing is handed to you. I think it takes a lot to survive.”

Photos by Josh Dehonney

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