Artisan & Single-Origin Food Brands for a More Considered Pantry

Graza's innovation was putting good Spanish olive oil in a squeeze bottle. That sounds simple. But it changed how people actually use olive oil — more of it, more freely, which is how you're supposed to use it. A great product made intuitive.

Aishwarya Iyer started Brightland after getting sick from low-grade olive oil adulteration and going deep on provenance. Every bottle has a harvest date and the specific California farm it came from. These are oils worth tasting on their own — no bread required.

Sana Javeri Kadri launched Diaspora to fix a trade structure that pays South Asian farmers less than 1% of the retail price of their spices. Direct-trade partnerships, transparent pricing, and turmeric that smells like it was ground this morning rather than three years ago.

Richard Christiansen — a brand strategist — bought a Spanish Colonial estate in Los Angeles and started actually growing things. The olive oil, honey, and tomatoes are genuinely from the garden. The packaging is some of the best in the food space. The products live up to it.

Chitra Agrawal grew up making traditional chutneys and achaar and decided to make them available to people who didn't grow up in a South Asian kitchen. The tomato achaar is a condiment that makes anything it touches better. Her cookbook is worth reading even if you never cook from it.

Emma and Roman Jewell started making nut butter in their Wellington kitchen in 2014 and became New Zealand's most celebrated artisan food brand. Their Everything Butter — peanut, coconut, almond, cashew, and sesame — is genuinely unlike anything else you can spread on toast.

Caroline Goldfarb co-founded Fishwife to bring the European tinned fish tradition to American pantries. The smoked salmon, albacore tuna, and anchovies are sourced from sustainable fisheries. The packaging is beautiful enough to leave on the counter. The flavor is good enough that you'll finish the tin standing at the kitchen sink.