"ari weinzweig" news and stories

Shad may have saved George Washington's army – and countless other European settlers – from starvation, but the bony fish's reputation has declined so precipitously in recent decades that organizers of an annual shad festival in North Carolina are unabashed about excluding it from their festivities.

"We do have fish, but we don't have shad," Grifton Shad Festival secretary Janet Haseley says cheerfully. "We used to have herring, but now we fry commercially raised catfish."

Shad do make a cameo appearance at the 40-year-old festival, which returns to Pitt County this month: In addition to dozens of events punning on shad's name – including Shad-O and a 5K "Spring Shad Run" – the event schedule features a frozen shad toss. "We freeze shad for tossing, and, afterward, we bury them for fertilizer," Haseley says. "Some of the animal people were kind of upset about it, but we think that's a pretty responsible way to do it."

Zingerman's co-founder Ari Weinzweig in front of the deli he opened 27 years ago. Photo: Zingerman's

Back in 1982, when Ari Weinzweig and Paul Saginaw opened Zingerman's Delicatessen in Ann Arbor, Mich., the food world was a much different place. Far fewer Americans knew that real Parmesan cheese did not come in a green plastic tube, or that honey came in more than the plastic-bear variety.

Though Zingerman's began its life as a simple corner deli serving traditional Jewish foods like pastrami, corned beef and noodle kugel, it soon established itself as a new breed of artisanal food store, introducing countless customers to everything from American Spoon Fruit jams to raw milk cave-aged Taleggio cheese. Today, Zingerman's has more than 500 employees and is comprised of nine businesses, including a creamery, restaurant, bakehouse, publishing house and business-training program collectively generating about $36 million every year.

Weinzweig and Saginaw have always maintained an open-book approach to their business, sharing their profit margins with employees and letting customers know exactly how important they are to Zingerman's continued success. And both have always kept an eye turned towards the future -- they've already outlined their vision for 2020, which includes, first and foremost, applying "the model of sustainability to every aspect of our work," whether that means customers, employees or the planet at large.

Ari on Tunisian food, customer loyalty and his forthcoming bacon book after the jump.