The entrepreneurial team behind
Beanilla, the online store for everything vanilla, has launched their second venture,
SpiceJungle.com, an online, one-stop shop for culinary enthusiasts.
Rob Conley bootstrapped Beanilla in 2005 from his apartment bedroom, with no monetary investment and just a handful of vanilla beans as inventory. After nine years of establishing the Beanilla brand as an online leader for vanilla beans and baking products, the company decided to launch SpiceJungle in order to expand into markets outside of the baking community and appeal to a broader audience of consumers who buy spices, herbs, seasonings, and culinary ingredients online.
SpiceJungle.com is the source for over 400 products including herbs, spices, chiles, mushrooms, teas, and coffees from around the world.
With the launch of the new venture, the firm has moved from their offices on West River Dr. to a new building in Rockford, Michigan. Brett Reame, one of the founders of the business, says business growth has been the catalyst. "We needed the space! When we moved into the space (West River Dr.) in 2011 it felt like a desert. As we continued to grow we quickly began to fill the space up," says Reame. "By mid-2013 we were jumping over pallets full of inventory just to get to our packaging area. We had product stacked to the ceiling."
Conley says the company caters to a wide audience of consumers, from the at-home cook and aspiring chef to breweries, commercial buyers, and the food service industry. The two ventures currently employ eight people (not counting Conley and Reame) with the latest hire starting only last week.
To learn more about SpiceJungle, you can view their
site here and their Facebook
page here.
Writer: John Rumery, Innovation and Jobs Editor
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