SPICE OF LIFE
Flavor Mavens co-owners Lee Seidl and Jennifer Stanek set up shop in Olive Branch.
If you can buy locally sourced grain-free meats and locally grown pesticide-free vegetables, shouldn’t you be able to buy the best certified organic spice blends and teas, too? This was the dilemma faced by Lee Seidl and Jennifer Stanek, the co-owners of Flavor Mavens in Olive Branch.
Flavor Mavens sells handblended seasonings and teas, made with fresh certified organic herbs and spices, to the public at farmer’s markets and to stores like Whole Foods in Germantown and Wholesale Nutrition in Southaven. Recently though, Seidl has seen sales through their website flavormavens.com take off with them shipping their spice and tea blends as far as California.
“I started eating from Farmers Markets almost exclusively in 2009. Here I am buying the best meats and vegetables that are extremely nutritious and flavorful and if I want the same quality in spices I’m having to buy in bulk when spices are usually sold in ounces,” Seidl said.
Some certified organic sellers she contacted wouldn’t sell quantities less than 500 pounds.
Seidl knew she wasn’t the only one facing this issue. In 2012, she met Jennifer Stanek. While Seidl carefully selects what she eats for flavor and general nutrition. Stanek was changing her eating habits for health reasons.
“Eating processed food for so many years really catches up with you and when you start eating home grown food it’s so much more nourishing. You can tell the difference in how your body responds, you have more energy, you feel better overall,” Stanek said.
Stanek, like Seidl, was buying individual organic herbs and then mixing them together herself to get combinations readily available in nonorganic seasoning blends.
“You could find some of the organic spices but not the organic blends. Most all the blends have those fillers that we want to avoid,” she said. “We made it our mission to create easy and convenient flavor combinations that are ready to go into our meals because people just don’t have that much time every time they cook.”
It took many years of cooking blending her own spices, experimenting with spices and having her family help her taste test that went into each of Flavor Mavens’ spice blends and teas.
“I did the same thing with the teas. I spent a lot of time experimenting with all the different flavors,” she said.
Stanek said her favorite spices and tea change with her mood and the seasons but right now the “Uniquely Greek” seasoning and the “Nettlemint” tea are her favorites. “Jennifer is a spice blending genius. While I know how to research where to get the spices, she knows exactly which herbs to blend together for every recipe,” Seidl said.
Flavor Mavens has a lot of customers that believe changing the way they eat will make them feel better, as well as a lot of vegans and vegetarians and those who follow paleo diets. Seidl likes the fact that what she is doing is better for her health but truly it’s about enjoying every bite of what she eats.
“I joke I eat like a Rockefeller: I eat the best food. When I make a Mexican dish that uses oregano it’s oregano from Mexico. When I want to cook something that calls for Herbs de Provence the herbs actually come from France,” Seidl said.
All of Flavor Mavens seasonings and teas are hand blended and packaged at its processing center in Olive Branch Old Towne, and while it doesn’t sell to the public out of that location, its products can be purchased right next door at Random Thoughts Old Towne Vintage Mall.
Sumer Dempsey, owner of Random Thoughts, said she gets a lot of people coming in just for Flavor Mavens products.
“A lot of people ask for them and I know why,” Dempsey said. “My husband and I have tried the taco seasoning and the Greek seasoning. We really like them, and we like that we don’t have to drive far to find something this good.”