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Courtesy Cleveland Kitchen
About six years ago, Cleveland Kitchen was celebrating the influx of $1 million in venture capital that would take the business — which was started by brothers Mac and Drew Anderson and Luke Visnic with small sales at the North Union Farmer's Market in 2014 — to the next level.
At that point, in 2017, Cleveland Kitchen was placing Cleveland Kraut and its other products in about 500 stores nationwide and running through 5,000 pounds of Ohio cabbage a week.
Today, those numbers are slightly larger: 12,000 stores (across all 50 states, with availability in Mexico, the Caribbean and, thanks to the U.S. military commissary, eight European countries) and 52,000 pounds of cabbage a week. They're on pace to do $37 million in sales this year.
Those stats are impressive, but Mac Anderson is most excited about another one: 80.
That's the number of new jobs Cleveland Kitchen will be bringing to its production facility on Carnegie Ave., in addition to the current 58 workers, thanks to tax credit assistance officially announced this week by the Ohio Department of Development. That production facility is being expanded, with work currently underway, which will grow Cleveland Kitchen's footprint to 65,000 square feet.
"Not to sound cliche, but it's great to keep investing in growth right here in the city, to bring jobs to where it all started and where we're all from," Mac Anderson told Scene. "We were very happy to see the city, county and JobsOhio come to bat for us and stand behind Cleveland growth, and Jon Pinney and TurnCap were not only early investors but have helped guide us through the process."
Cleveland Kitchen early last year acquired Sonoma Brinery in California. The new expansion will allow the company to bring those jobs to Cleveland, along with manufacturing equipment that will allow them to operate completely in-house on the shores of Lake Erie.
"We really like to own the process to control quality," Anderson said from Florida, where he was meeting with Target executives and celebrating his mother Donita's 70th birthday.
"You have to pay ode to the woman who gave us our entrepreneurial spirit."
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