Cleveland Kitchen fermented foods company fills 80 jobs, expands production space  – The Land (2024)

Brothers Mac Anderson and Drew Anderson and their brother-in-law Luke Visnic started selling sauerkraut in 2014 at a farmers market in Shaker Square.

Major retailers, including Walmart, Giant Eagle, Target, and Meijer, now carry their fermented food company Cleveland Kitchen’s kraut, kimchi, pickles, and fermented dressings. Cleveland Kitchen sells its products in about 14,000 stores across the country, in military commissaries, and stores in Mexico and the Caribbean, said Mac Anderson. It’s the number one kraut and kimchi brand in the U.S and the number four refrigerated pickle brand in the U.S., according to rankings from Spins, a retail data company.

In February 2022, Cleveland Kitchen acquired Sonoma Brinery, a pickle and kraut company based in California. The local company has since moved its pickle production from California to Cleveland. It expanded its production space at 7501 Carnegie Ave. and filled 80 new jobs in Cleveland, bringing its total Cleveland workforce from 58 to 138 employees. Cleveland Kitchen is the first recipient of a new tax credit incentive from the city for companies that create 50 or more full-time jobs paying at least the city’s median income. The owners say the tax credit is helping them keep their company in Cleveland.

“As two kids who grew up in Shaker and riding the RTA down to Cleveland almost every weekend, it’s really cool and important for us to keep building and hiring and bringing talent here to Cleveland and keep being a great generator for jobs and the workforce,” said Mac Anderson, the company’s chief commercial officer. Drew Anderson is chief executive officer, and the Andersons’ brother-in-law, Visnic, is the chief strategy officer.

Expanded facility, 80 new jobs in Cleveland

In 2018, Cleveland Kitchen moved into its space at 7501 Carnegie Ave., part of the Central Kitchen Food Hub in the Midtown neighborhood. Other businesses that lease space at the Food Hub include The Cleveland Bagel Company and Souper Market.

The company took on a $3 million expansion project that included adding new lighting, racks, and refrigeration equipment, and moving pickle manufacturing equipment from California to Cleveland. It grew its space from 20,199 square feet to 57,967 square feet.

Cleveland Kitchen created 80 new jobs in Cleveland, adding to 58 employees already based in Cleveland. The new positions are mostly entry-level roles on the production lines, line supervisors and managers, and warehouse employees, as well as a few employees on the operations management, finance, and marketing teams. Cleveland Kitchen has already filled all 80 jobs it said it would bring to the city by 2026. Indeed has a job listing for an order entry associate with pay starting at $18 an hour.

Drew Anderson told Cleveland City Council Members in a Jan. 9 Development, Planning and Sustainability Committee meeting that hourly pay starts at $17 or $18 an hour for production jobs and $21 an hour for jobs in the warehouse. Job benefits include health and vision insurance, 401k plans, paid time off, and holiday pay, according to the company’s presentation to the council members. Seventy percent of Cleveland Kitchen’s employees are Cleveland residents, Drew Anderson said in an email.

Cleveland Kitchen had an easier time finding workers in Cleveland than in California, where the company it acquired was based, Drew Anderson said. “It’s a great, rich labor market here. Folks are eager and ready to work,” he said.

Ward 5 Council Member Richard Starr, who represents the Midtown neighborhood, said he plans to partner with Cleveland Kitchen on job fairs to reach Ward 5 residents. He hopes that Cleveland Kitchen jobs could provide career opportunities with upward mobility to Ward 5 residents.

“It made me say, ‘Dang, y’all are really trying to do something that is really, really great,” Starr said.

Growing in Cleveland, with help from a new tax credit

The Cleveland Kitchen owners said another state offered them incentives to relocate their production. The company declined to say which state made the offer.

The locally owned company wanted to stay in Cleveland, so they reached out to the state of Ohio and the city of Cleveland for counter offers. The state of Ohio approved a seven-year tax credit totaling $300,000, Cleveland.com reported in October.

In January, Cleveland Kitchen became the first company approved to participate in the city of Cleveland’s new income tax credit program, which offers tax credits up to 50% of the income taxes withheld from pay to new employees for up to five years, according to a presentation from the Department of Economic Development. (Another company, International Food Solutions, got approval last week to receive an income tax credit.)

Companies that create 50 or more new full-time jobs in Cleveland and pay at least the city’s median income ($33,678 or $16.19 an hour, according to the presentation) can apply for the program. Each company has to get approval from Cleveland City Council to enter a tax credit agreement with the city.

After getting council’s approval last month, Cleveland Kitchen is now finalizing its agreement with the city, said Tom McNair, the city of Cleveland’s director of economic development.

With $3.6 million of new payroll, Cleveland Kitchen anticipates getting tax credits totaling $177,000 over five years, McNair said.

“The city’s getting new jobs, new tax revenue, and they’re giving us a discount over the course of a handful of years,” Drew Anderson said.

Family and fermented foods

The Cleveland Kitchen owners want to keep their company in Cleveland, where they started the business. Donita Anderson, the Andersons’ mother, founded the North Union Farmers Market, and the three owners sold their first products there in Shaker Square.

“When she founded that when we were kids, it was great for us to be a part of that ecosystem, to really see small businesses grow and thrive,” Mac Anderson said. “And that kind of led us to understand that we could build a food business, as we had seen so many come to market.”

Cleveland Kitchen plans to turn about 10 million pounds of cabbage and about 20 million pounds of cucumbers into kraut, kimchi, and pickles this year, the Andersons said.

But about 10 years ago, Drew Anderson taught Mac Anderson, who was in college at the time, how to make sauerkraut over the phone. He had just learned that the Andersons’ brother-in-law, Luke Visnic, shared Drew Anderson’s same hobby: making sauerkraut.

“He (Visnic) pulled out a jar of sauerkraut that he had made,” Drew Anderson said. “And it was like, ‘Man, this is an odd coincidence. We both do this.”

Before they moved into their space at 7501 Carnegie Ave., the three made their products at a commercial kitchen, working from 7 p.m. to 2 a.m. or 3 a.m.

In late 2020, Cleveland Kitchen added kimchi to their product offerings, developing a recipe with their family friends at Korea House restaurant at 3700 Superior Ave E in the Asiatown neighborhood. The Andersons’ grandmother, who is Burmese, swapped recipes with fellow Asian immigrants, and she stocked her fridge with kimchi from her Korean friends.

The company added lightly fermented pickles in 2021, then scaled up again when it acquired Sonoma Brinery, the California-based pickle and kraut manufacturer, the following year.

“It’s an ancestral food. Every culture does have some form of fermented vegetable, but bringing that to the forefront to the plates across America is key for us,” Mac Anderson said.

Often paired with pierogi and kielbasa, Mac Anderson views kraut as a comfort food and “part of the fabric” of Cleveland. Plus, fermented foods have probiotics that support gut health.

Cleveland Kitchen hopes to continue increasing the consumption of fermented foods in the U.S. and creating jobs in Cleveland. The company grew nearly 40% last year and set a goal of growing another 40-50% next year, Mac Anderson said.

“Our family’s here; we grew up here. We’re super proud of the city. On every product we sell across the country, it says, ‘Cleveland’ on there,” Drew Anderson said. “We’re Cleveland kids, and we love it here. And we’re just happy that the city and the state wanted to keep us and helped us out with some of the cost of expanding and bringing all those jobs back.”

Find stores that sell Cleveland Kitchen products on the company’s website. Follow Cleveland Kitchen on Instagram or Facebook for more information about the products. To contact Cleveland Kitchen, fill out this form, email info@clevelandkitchen.com, or call 216-264-6895.