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WHO: |
Tasya Kelen of Isadore Nut Co |
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| BUSINESS TYPE: |
Gourmet Nuts and Snack Company |
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SIGNATURE PRODUCTS: |
Lemon Rosemary Nut Mix, Chai Pecans, Gift Tins, Gift Baskets, Corporate Gifts |
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WHERE: WEBSITE: SOCIALS: |
Maplewood, MN |
By Millie Frankel, Staff Writer at Meet the Minnesota Makers
No matter what they do, Isadore Nut Company ensures that every decision honors two core principles: people and the planet.
After her daughters started attending school full-time and she received a gluten-free diagnosis back in 2012, Tasya Kelen spent her newfound free time experimenting with spiced nut recipes in the kitchen and looking for quality ingredients at the local Kingfield Farmers Market. This was where she first discovered Horner’s Corner maple syrup. “It tasted so good,” remembers Tasya. “And I knew that this was a guy who was tapping trees just down the road.” So, she had found her first method of supporting both the community and the environmental sustainability just by looking around at her neighborhood
farmer’s market.
Local maple syrup can still be found in Isadore Nut Co’s recipes, complimenting the rich spices of their Chai Pecans, inspired by Tasya’s travels to India and Southeast Asia, or in the curry-flavored Turmeric Cayenne Spice nut mixes. Tasya chose to highlight the spice because of its nourishing health benefits, a choice that honors the company’s namesake and which is reflected in all of their products. Isadore Nut Co is named after Tasya’s grandfather, who was an early advocate for organic foods in the 1950s and believed that “food is medicine.” Tasya has remained loyal to her grandfather’s wisdom, ensuring that all of Isadore Nut Co’s snack mixes are vegan, gluten-free and sourced sustainably. She jokes that she pays for the privilege to be audited every year to be certified as dairy free and non-GMO.
Politics and Nuts: The Origin Story
You might not expect the story of a healthy nut company to begin with 9/11, but Tasya has always been a politically-conscious individual with a desire to improve the world around her.
She started her career in journalism at KFAI radio in Minneapolis before moving on to All Things Considered at MPR. After 9/11, Tasya had a wake-up call: she didn’t want to spend her career regurgitating national news stories when she could be advocating for her own local community. “We need to be the mouthpiece for the people,” says Tasya. She left her career in journalism and shifted her focus to social justice. After getting married, she traveled the world with her husband, which raised even more questions for her: “Where do you want to do good in the world? How do you want to make a difference?” Eventually, this led her to work with the fair-trade handicraft company 10,000 Villages, an experience that went on to shape her desire to build a company that gives back to the community.
People of All Abilities Shape Isadore Nut Co
Five years into running Isadore Nut Co, Tasya nearly closed up shop and devoted herself full time to Moms Demand Action, a coalition fighting to end gun violence. Her margins weren’t growing as fast as she hoped, and she felt like her efforts could be better spent elsewhere. Then, she learned about the unemployment crisis in the disability community, with rates greater than 80%. She recognized this opportunity to use her company to provide a much-needed service to an overlooked community, and the path forward “just broke open and sunshine poured in.”
Working with the disabled community has had an indelible impact on Isadore Nut Co. For example, employees with dexterity challenges motivated them to update their packaging. “We used to be in a kraft bag with a window. And so to distinguish that kraft bag, we put a hand-applied paper sticker over it,” explains Tasya. This was an unnecessarily difficult process for the employees, so they shifted to using pre-printed bags. This change made it easier and more efficient for her team of all abilities to package the nut mixes while making the brand’s mission more clear for consumers.
This experience led Tasya to see the ripple effects of her choices and allowed her to move forward with an abundance mindset, looking out for the positives. In working with an employee named Abby, Tasya recognized her as an outgoing and gregarious individual. She encouraged Abby to lead demos for in store promotions. Abby greatly enjoyed her experience at her first
demo. “She called her mom and she’s like, ‘Mom, Tasya said that some people would rather have a root canal than talk to complete strangers,’” Tasya remembers. Abby then was able to advocate for herself and her people-skills at her second job as an administrative assistant with the Special Olympics. She asked for a raise and eventually became a presenter for the organization in local schools. Explains Tasya: “The abundance mindset was like, oh my God, there are so many people that are being overlooked in our society because we label them as less than or unable to do things, as opposed to saying, ‘I’ll teach you. I’d be happy to teach you’.”
Sustainable Sourcing for the Planet and the People
Pecans, cashews, and walnuts.
Although not a candied snack, Isadore Nut uses locally sourced maple syrup from Don’s Sugar Shack in Taylor’s Falls to bind on the spices. Their pecans come from a second-generation family farm in Oklahoma. Their walnuts are sourced from California through Equal Exchange – an independent, worker-owned cooperative, which Tasya
discovered by tasting different nuts from the bulk bins at her local co-op.
Cashews are a labor-intensive crop to harvest. “They are like this little nose that sits on the end of a very perishable fruit. So you have to wait for the fruit to drop and then you collect the cashews,” explains Tasya. Isadore Nut Co works with Tolaro Global, which sources nuts directly from women sellers in Benin and Sierra Leone to combat the exploitative cashew industry. “We learned about them through other people in the food, local ecosystem. And I truly cannot stress enough how important community over competition is,” says Tasya.
Exciting Developments for Isadore Nut Co
Bringing together delicious recipes and a commitment to bettering the world has brought Isadore Nut Co some much-deserved success. In 2020, after bringing on employees with disabilities, they applied for the National Good Food Foundation Awards in the snack category and won for their Lemon Rosemary nut mix and the following year for their Chai Pecans. In 2022, the Four Seasons hotel in Minneapolis began stocking their snack mixes.
Last year, they explored the hospitality industry further by working with Procure Impact, which helps small businesses with positive missions place their
products in hotels across the country. This partnership led to a collaboration with Minneapolis celebrity chef and environmental advocate Andrew Zimmern, who loved their nuts and their mission. “Even though we may be doing things differently, we’re doing it with love, we’re doing it with heart, we’re doing it with joy and magic. And that’s what we need in our food system. He says that with such conviction,” remembers Tasya. “That was a pinch me moment from this year that I could never have imagined.”
As a “social enterprise,” Isadore Nut Co’s first commitment is to bettering society. Says Tasya, “You have to say there’s got to be a better way. And it may be slower and it may be more laborious, but in the end, if we chip away at that status quo, that means that people aren’t being paid a fair price or people aren’t being fed the healthiest foods– if you can chip away at that little by little, you can change things.”
Get in Touch
Visit Isadore Nut Co at https://www.isadorenutco.com/ and order their award-winning snacks and gourmet gifts. Look for them on your grocery store and coop shelves. For corporate orders visit https://www.isadorenutco.com/pages/corporate-gifts
Follow Isadore Nut Co on Instagram and Facebook to be the first to know about new flavor releases.
Visit meettheminnesotamakers.com or follow @meettheminnesotamakers on Facebook and Instagram to discover the small business owners leading Minnesota on a tasty sustainable path forward. Meet the Minnesota Makers is a news site that connects you to the local food, farms, artists and artisans that make Minnesota thrive.
