Tasty Kale Founder Goes for Passion Over Numbers

We’re highlighting small businesses from around the country as nominated by you, our readers. If your favorite small business is using Twitter to communicate with customers, let us know about it @fbsmallbiz with the hashtag #mysbc, and it may be featured as an upcoming Small Business Spotlight.

Small Business Spotlight: Tasty Kale

Who: Co-founders Larry Brownstein and Tom Brophy, @tastykale

What: Dehydrated kale chips

Where: West Haven, CT

When: April 2011

How: Brownstein was participating in the “Largest Loser” weight program at his local JCC,  looking to lose weight and find healthy snacks. At the same time, he helped his daughter with her senior thesis project at UMass by taking photos of food she had made.

“I took her baked kale chips out of the oven, and tried them and didn’t really like it,” he said. “Then two days later, I started craving kale.”

He made the chips as a snack at home to bring with him to the JCC. He then started passing them out, and as requests came in, Brownstein began making the chips in bulk.

Today, Tasty Kale has sold more than 5,000 pounds of kale and is sold in stores across the state, including Fairway.

Quote from the owner: “I am not a numbers guy. I go on passion and drive, so I do the sampling and am always out there getting reaction from people,” he said.