I rented a small restaurant kitchen which I had access to in the evenings and weekends and I bought a small hand held burger press. I prepared ingredients on a Friday night, hand pressed burgers on a Saturday, packed them on the Sunday, and sold them during the week. I could not speak Swedish well, but I learnt how to say “tastes awesome, gluten free and vegan” and I went out enthusiastically to sell them. The shops wanted to test them, and jordnötsbiffar sold well. I did in store demos, and even though my Swedish was very bad, people tasted and were very satisfied. More shops tested them, and sold them, and soon these shops were asking me for more products! Then came Lemon Masala Burger. I hand pressed those out to, and that was a success also…
I moved to a bigger kitchen, a friend bought me a real electric burger machine, I even had so much to do I had to employ a friend to help! More products were released, and I was picking up more customers all the time. Eventually I found a small factory in Malmö, and an investor, and we set up small but effective production. Ekko gourmet continued to grow and I soon realized that this small factory will not be suitable if I want to achieve my goal in having Ekko Gourmet in all of Swedens grocery stores. We moved production one more time to a larger facility and I was involved in a large scale production, and I trained the personal on all the hows and whys of making these great products.
What an adventure, but it is far from over! I am so very happy and proud that there are so many people that share our passion and values. We have made positive choices regarding organic ingredients, environmental issues and culinary sensation, and obviously every one of our valued customers consciously or unconsciously makes a positive impact by choosing ekko gourmet.
This is our history so far, and we look forward to having a fantastic future together! Thanks and a big Ekko hug to you!
Yours sincerely,
Jared Christensen