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/725016
JOEL SCHUMAN Source Atlantique Joel Schuman, founder of Source Atlantique, died last August just short of his 63rd birthday. Under his leadership, the Englewood Cliffs, N.J.-based importer raised the bar for brand development, level of service, and salesmanship in the specialty food industry. Inspiration… Linda Schuman says her late husband was born in Switzerland, reared in Germany until he was 9 years old, then sent to boarding school in England. His parents were American but had international careers, their lifestyle endowing Joel with foreign lan- guage skills and a comfort level with different cultures, which served him well professionally. When Joel was 37, he announced to his wife that he wanted his own import business. "Clearly, he had a very strong vision," she says. He left his sales and marketing job at a big Dutch importer, Liberty Richter, and started Source Atlantique in 1991. Over time he signed exclusive deals with hundreds of brands all around the world, importing Maille mustard, La Baleine sea salt, polenta from Argentina, and condiments from Asia. "He had a very strict and thorough methodology, so if he was selling balsamic vinegar he knew everything about it," Linda says. "He became such a resource of information that people would go to him to brainstorm, run ideas by him." Joel thrived on travel and took a hands-on approach to devel- oping brand recognition and repackaging items for the U.S. market, working closely with retailers like Zabar's, Whole Foods, and Fairway. The last year of his life, as he was undergoing treatment for lymphocytic leukemia, he conducted business from his hospital bed at Memorial Sloan Kettering in New York City. "He used to say to the nurses, 'Put a sign on my door so no one's allowed in. I'm having a meeting,'" Linda says. "People would come in wearing masks and gowns and gloves. ( Joel 's immune system was weakened from stem cell transplants.) He couldn't get out of bed but he kept doing business. It was great for him because otherwise he would have lost his mind." Linda says that 2015, the year he died, was the company's most profitable. Impact… According to Linda, Joel was not your typical busi- ness type, having studied philosophy and religion at Reed College in Oregon. "He taught himself everything," she says. "It amazed me how much he understood the international market. He would educate manufacturers about what it took to build a brand in the U.S." Linda describes how he worked to convince producers to pay for advertising, marketing, and space on grocery-store shelves. "It costs a lot of money to be successful in the U.S. market and the people who partnered with him learned it was worth it," she says. "He was able to import so many specialty foods from different countries that didn't have the wherewithal or the know-how to do it themselves." The Future… Source Atlantique will go on as an importer of spe- cialty foods but it is now owned by Joel's partner, Rema Foods. Joel's death has left a huge void for both his immediate family and global family of producers and retailers. During her husband's hospitaliza- tion Linda left her career in fashion marketing. She isn't sure about her next move, saying, "We were always juggling schedules and now I'm okay with taking my time." Julie Besonen writes for The New York Times and is a restaurant columnist for nycgo.com. PHOTOS: SOURCE ATLANTIQUE "He had a very strict and thorough methodology, so if he was selling balsamic vinegar he knew everything about it. He became such a resource of information that people would go to him to brainstorm, run ideas by him." 42 ❘ SPECIALTY FOOD MAGAZINE specialtyfood.com