I really enjoy cooking – it gives me something to do besides eating. I became a big fan of Penzey’s Spices after discovering their store on a trip to Pittsburgh, but Penzey’s started and is headquartered in Wisconsin. We now enjoy ordering spices from their catalog and website. All kinds, freshly made up, many sizes, Penzey’s is a super place for a food lover to shop.
We just received another free Penzey’s catalog this week, and Mrs.labradog pointed out something remarkable therein. First, a sort of “editorial” from Bill Penzey is in the front, next to the table of contents. Come with me below the jump.
From Bill Penzey, of Penzey's Spices:
In our continuing celebration of Penzeys Spices twenty-five years, in this issue we are highlighting where we come from. In our travels throughout this great country we have seen lots of great places to start and grow a business; our great place to start and grow has been Wisconsin.
Seems when talking about launching a business the standard tale to tell is one of epic struggle: challenges met, competitors bested, obstacles overcome etc. I have not found it to be that. In fact the twenty-five years from starting with me being the only employee to this year where I now have over 500 great co-workers all over the country have been a lot of fun and in many ways easy. I really think being lucky enough to get our start in Wisconsin has a lot to do with this.
Current politics aside, whether business taxes go up or down a few percentage points doesn’t mean much to the health of a business. What actually matters is really pretty simple. What a business needs to be healthy is great workers and enough customers.
Great workers don’t grow on trees, they grow in classrooms. As a business that manufactures, that creates a product known for quality, I can’t think of a more important piece to our growth than having great people. Penzeys, like every other business here, benefits tremendously from Wisconsin’s long tradition of valuing education as an investment in our future, and its history of respecting the teachers who are kind enough to dedicate their lives to educating our young.
And as a retailer that sells to people of every possible economic background we also owe a great debt for the sacrifices that generations of Wisconsinites have made to ensure that it is not only the privileged few who have a couple extra bucks in their pockets. These days, with two-thirds of the nation’s economy being retail, this country’s life blood is a healthy middle class. In Wisconsin we are lucky enough to have more than a few who understand having that healthy middle class was not a gift, it was a struggle. Their efforts are a big part of why Penzeys has made it as far as we have.
Wisconsin is a great place, not the only great place, but certainly one of them. I hope you enjoy the stories and try a few of the recipes of the people where we come from. And give that Northwoods a try. It really is a great place to be.
What can be better than finding a great company whose products you love, and then finding out they are good, progressive corporate citizens!
But the good news doesn’t stop there. In their catalog, they print recipes, comments, and personal stories from their customers. One of them is John Tillison, from Milwaukee, who writes about his Dad, Edmund:
My dad truly believed in the value of reaching middle ground,” recalls John Tillison. “He understood that there needed to be give and take in order to move ahead. This thing that’s going on with teachers here in Wisconsin — it would have driven him nuts.”
Two of Edmund Tillison’s daughters grew up to become teachers. Both of his sons married teachers. One of his granddaughters is a nurse. That’s a lot of service oriented jobs in the family. And his wife, Anne, was a high school secretary who never looked at her work as a job, but rather as service to the community.
(snip)
“I think we became teachers because when we were growing up in the Fifties and Sixties teachers were respected and revered and appreciated a lot more than they are now.”
(snip)
Ed didn’t mind hard work — it helped pay bills — and by the time he made it through the Depression
he had acquired many valuable skills, not the least of which was an ability to communicate and work effectively with people at all levels. “He lived through the Depression, he saw what it was like,” says John. “He understood that people need help sometimes. I think the Depression shaped him that way.
(snip)
“Dad never sweated the small stuff. He never made a lot of money in his lifetime, but he never complained about paying taxes, or welfare, or any of that stuff. His parents came to this country seeking a better life, and instilled in him the importance of everybody pulling together for the common good, to build and protect not only the better life they built, but basic human freedoms. He worked hard, he was a union man, and he believed you need to help other people. His really was the Greatest Generation.”
What’s remarkable to me, about Penzey’s, is that they aren’t just quietly making their political donations. They are putting this front-and-center in every catalog they send out, and in their pdf. catalog online, too.
Bill Penzey (who also knew Ed Tillison, above) writes, in an afterword in the catalog:
Something about the Depression, then the war, then
trying to make a life after all of that left them so much more aware of
how we depend on each other, of how many had sacrificed so much
to give them the opportunity for a better life. They understood they
owed a debt to those who came before them and repaid that debt by
building a better world for those coming after them.
In many ways Penzeys Spices owes much of its success to coming
in the wake of the greatest generation and the better world they
created for all of us. With the patriotism of their day so tied to
sacrifice it is hard to imagine they would think kindly of our new
patriotism of funding never-ending tax cuts by closing schools and
shutting our doors to those in need. And knowing Edmund, it’s a safe bet
that on hearing the government was reducing the rights of workers at the
very time those rights were needed most his comments would not be saltfree.
Edmund has me thinking about how even more than most I am in debt to
those who came before me. Am I really doing my part? If a quarter century
from now some 22-year-old fresh out of the public schools gets the notion
to start a business, what will be their chances of success if we don’t honestly
fund education or appreciate teachers for the difficult and extremely
important job they do? Might be time to get to work.
Thanks for reading,
Props to Penzey’s Spices, not for selling great products, but for laying it fearlessly on the line for the middle class and the workers of America, and succeeding as a progressive business!
*Note bene
1. I have no connection to or interest in, Penzey's, except as a small-time
customer (and as a fellow progressive business owner).
Therefore I've included no company contact info. You can find 'em, if you like
what they do. Go tell 'em!
2. I spoke with Penzey's by phone, and with their permission, I quoted liberally.
3. I edited out tangential personal digressions of the commenting customer.