The High 5 Bind: Help us Grind!

In mid-2016, Chef Laura Romito kicked off her passion-project and small business, Food Geek Foods, out of historic Eastern Market in Detroit. Her first product line called High 5 Salts with Benefits features five uniquely different specialty salt and organic seasoning blends that naturally activate the five tastes the tongue recognizes: salty, sweet, tart, bitter and savory – to create perfectly seasoned food with every bite.

Since its launch, High 5 Salts with Benefits have been incredibly popular with local grocery stores & specialty gift shop patrons, as well as salt fans around the country. With demand for her gourmet salt and sugar blends growing, Chef Laura has decided that it’s also time to grow her business by investing in an industrial-sized spice grinder.

As the business grows, a local co-packer will be utilized to alleviate some of the large-scale assembly work that comes along with carefully and safely packaging each individual salt blend for customers. This new spice grinder will be vital in helping Chef Laura keep close control over the product quality and ingredients while mixing large volume spice batches.

Chef Laura needs to raise $350 to match grant funds she received from Eastern Market to acquire the commercial spice grinder. This piece of equipment would help grow Food Geek Foods and will allow the brand to expand while continuing to provide products to the Eastern Market Farmstand Program to support the local economy.

Check out our update here from Feb. 28th and thank you for all of your support!

Once funds have been raised, the new commercial spice grinder will be purchased and utilized for high-volume production. All qualified members of Detroit Kitchen Connect, a licensed community kitchen, will have access to this equipment for their own business needs.

Food Geek Foods is a part of Detroit Kitchen Connect, a program that supports a diverse group of entrepreneurs doing what they love and contributing to Detroit’s growing good food system. They seek to make kitchens more accessible and turn neighborhoods into food entrepreneurship hubs with technical assistance, workshops and other startup services. 

Why are we doing this?? Eastern Market provides a fundamental launchpad for small local food business startups. However, as with any industry, there are certain aspects of business that can outgrow the resources available and eventually slow down production, which can be detrimental to small businesses.

This new spice grinder will help take Food Geek Foods to the next level of production and will directly benefit the local food system by making it possible to give back to the community through Eastern Market's Farmstand Program, purchasing of local ingredients, hiring our first employees, and educating people about healthy, delicious eating through cooking demonstrations and classes.