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Million-Dollar Company All Started With Tortilla Chips
Pubdate: Thu, 21 Sep 2006
Source: Toronto Business Times (CN ON)
Copyright: 2006 Metroland Printing and Distributing
Contact: http://www.insidetoronto.ca/to/tbt/contact/
Website: http://www.insidetoronto.ca/to/tbt/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/4278
Author: Lisa Day
MILLION-DOLLAR COMPANY ALL STARTED WITH TORTILLA CHIPS
Ruth's Hemp Foods Inc. Distributes In Canada, U.S.
It might be that Annex resident Ruth Shamai's hemp food company generates
about $1 million in revenue each year because it's obvious she enjoys what
she creates.
At a recent interview from her home on Burnside Drive, which is also the
office to her staff of two, boxes of her various hemp bars, packages of
hemp seeds, bottles of hemp salad dressing and jars of hemp powder, lined
her dining room table beckoning one to sample.
Over fresh-brewed coffee, Shamai did just that, offering a choice of one of
10 bar varieties to enjoy while chatting about the success of her business,
Ruth's Hemp Foods Inc.
After much consideration, and Shamai's recommendation, the thought of
chocolate and ginger made me choose that maca power bar, while Shamai
picked her new favourite, the lemon hazelnut maca power bar. Not to make
any bar feel left out, she said she has eaten each one multiple times and
her original standby, the Hemp Power Cranberry Trail, is still delicious.
But it's not everyone's favourite, Shamai said, because the shells are left
on the hemp seeds, offering a bar that is more crunchy. I had to agree, but
the ginger in my bar packed a wallop, something Shamai said she did on purpose.
If you like ginger, you want to taste ginger, she said smiling.
The hemp taste, though, got lost in the chocolate and when asked what the
seeds themselves taste like, Shamai left the interview to raid her fridge
for a package of the shelled pieces, which are perfect for tossing on
salads or putting in smoothies.
(Shamai said the taste is similar to that of a pine nut and can be used for
a variety of purposes, helping people increase the amount of good fatty
acids and protein in their diets.)
Shamai has no shortage of knowledge about hemp and could be considered a
foremother of the industry. When she started her business in 1999, she was
on the cutting edge; hemp was legalized for commercial growers the year
before, thanks in large part to Shamai herself.
"I am one of the people who played a role in the relegalization," she said.
But Shamai's story starts in 1993 when the mail-order business she started
wasn't making as much money as she wanted. One of the ideas she had for
making the company better was hemp and she started researching the plant.
Hemp for food (seeds, which are high in protein and good fats including
omega 3, 6 and 9 as well as the rare LGA fatty acid, and oil) and textiles
(clothing, rope) is different from the marijuana grown for one purpose -
getting high.
"It's the same species, different variety. It's like a chihuahua and a
great dane," Shamai said. "No matter what you feed a chihuahua, it won't
turn into a great dane."
The biggest difference between the two plants is the amount of THC, the
chemical that causes a high, found in each. In marijuana, THC is up to 25
per cent, while the THC allowable in food is 10 parts per million.
"In other words, there is no high."
And the industry is monitored, with government officials coming right to
the fields to ensure the plants have the right percentage of THC.
Shamai said hemp was actually legal in Canada at one time, but in the
1930s, the government made it illegal until people like Shamai helped them
to see the positives - the environment (producing and buying local) and the
economy (creating a textile market).
Currently everyone wears cotton, which is produced overseas meaning the
money doesn't stay in Canada.
"Hemp fibre is used to make clothes. We could all be wearing hemp clothes,"
Shamai said, pointing out the shirt, which looked like a cotton tank top,
she was wearing was made from hemp.
After her successful fight to get hemp legalized, she incorporated Ruth's
Hemp Foods Inc. in 1999, with her first product launched in January 2000.
The first product was tortilla chips, which Shamai decided to create
because she thought it would be easier for people to incorporate hemp into
their diets by offering something that they would eat anyway.
The chips proved to be popular.
A couple of years ago, she stopped distributing them so she could change
the packaging, but one thing led to another and she still hasn't brought
them back. That's despite the fact that people still demand she carries them.
"The main request is the chips," she said.
Even her adult daughter misses the chips, discovering an old package Shamai
uses as a demo and opening them up only to discover that they were no
longer edible.
Shamai said she still plans to bring them, along with the salsa, back once
she launches her "secret" project.
A vegetarian, who still whips up a meat-and-grain diet for her beloved
English setter dog Salty, Shamai said she believes in creating
environmentally friendly products. Not only are all of her products
genetically modified free (GMO), but the ingredients used to make them also
bear that distinction.
Take, for example, the chocolate ginger maca power bars, which use GMO-free
and organic chocolate because ordinary chocolate uses refined sugar, which
has been genetically modified.
Shamai's products also have no hydrogenated fats, no artificial colour or
unsulfured fruit and are trans-fat free.
As such, Shamai's products can be found at health food stores in Ontario,
out west and across the United States as well at selected yoga studios and
the organic section at Loblaws.
Visit http://www.ruthsfoods.ca/ for a complete list.
Producing one million bars a year, Shamai is quick to laugh at the notion
of making the burgers, bars or other products at her home. Pointing to her
constant companions - Salty and Tiger, the cat - she said she is sure
people would be relieved her products are not made out of her small kitchen.
After researching different business models, Shamai said she chose to go
with contract packaging, or co-packing, where someone else produces and
packages a product. (Shamai creates the recipes and uses food scientists to
finish them.) She said she has different co-packers for different products,
which allows her to leave her products in the hands of professionals who
produce, for example, power bars every day.
"They have the perfect equipment and years and years of expertise."
Once the product is made, she has two warehouses, one in the west end of
Toronto and one in the United States, as well as distributors and brokers,
whose job is to constantly show her product.
Shamai, who said she is her toughest critic, said while she considers
herself a success considering the number of products she has created,
monetarily she could be doing better. The fall of the U.S. dollar, she
said, "really hurt me" and said she wishes the Canadian government
appreciated what that has done to Canadians doing business in the United
States.
Shamai said she also hopes to sell her business in 10 years.
"By then it's worth selling and I want to do something else with my life."
Until then she plans to expand a few more product lines, launch her "secret
project" and maybe bring back those tortilla chips.
Hemp facts
Hemp and marijuana plants look similar in size, but are grown differently.
Marijuana plants can get about 10 to 15 feet tall, but then all the plant's
energy is used for the plant. Hemp plants are grown low and bushy and spend
their energy creating seeds.
You can get about 1,000 pounds of hemp seeds per acre, more if the field is
not organic certified, but Ruth Shamai, president of Ruth's Hemp Foods
Inc., said she will only use organic seeds.
It takes 110 days for hemp plants to go to seed.
Shamai purchases her seeds from farmers in the prairies. Shamai said she
purchases seeds from out west because the seeds are cheaper as land itself
is less expensive. There are hemp farmers north of the city.
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