Specialty Food Magazine is the leading publication for retailers, manufacturers and foodservice professionals in the specialty food trade. It provides news, trends and business-building insights that help readers keep their businesses competitive.
Issue link: https://www.e-digitaleditions.com/i/1119718
STEWART REICH HANSON FASO SALES & M ARKETING "W e're the explorers of the indus- try, the risk-takers in trying new and different things," says Stewart Reich, 66, the president of Hanson Faso Sales & Marketing. "You can take a trip around the world by eating." Reich's family has been in the busi- ness in America since 1945. His great uncle Max Ries and his father Steve Reich owned Reese Finer Foods, which was purchased by Pet Milk in 1963. The following year Steve bought Charlotte Charles, a manufac- turer of fruitcakes, candy, and preserves, and ran it for many years with his wife, Margrit Reich. Stewart worked on the strawberry preserves line at the age of 12. Throughout high school and college, he swept floors, took inventory, and packed gift baskets. After grad school he became a buyer for Charlotte Charles' distributing business. By the time the company went public in 1983, they were han- dling 3,000 food items, from Lindt chocolate to Walkers Shortbread. In 1990, the family sold Charlotte Charles to Portland Food Products. Reich worked there for awhile, then did some consulting, bought another company and merged it into Hanson Faso in 1995. He built the Lombard, Ill. business to include confectionery products and natu- ral and organic food items, growing from five states to 20 states and more than 100 different product lines. "The specialty food business is a great movement that's improved our culture and the food we eat," he says. "You have had very few memorable events in your life that did not involve food, whether it's going out for a cup of coffee or to a wedding or bar mitzvah. It's a way to share common thoughts, bring people together. Getting to intro- duce new foods to our society that maybe we hadn't seen before has been a tremendous amount of fun." —J.B. Julie Besonen writes for The New York Times and is a restaurant columnist for nycgo.com. Arielle Feger is content associate for Specialty Food Magazine. Summer Fancy Food Show Booth #260 SUMMER 2019 57 HALL OF FAME