All Seasonings has all the ingredients for growth

ONEIDA — All Seasonings Ingredients has been the Oneida area’s hidden secret, but that’s changing now that the food-production company is growing. Without a retail brand on the shelves, All Seasonings isn’t a household name, CEO Brendan Farnach says, but it is well known in the spice industry. His father, Joe, started the business in 1994 out of the kitchen of his Sylvan Beach restaurant, Cinderella’s Café. It was really a side project, Farnach says, where his father bought spices in bulk and packaged up the extras to sell to other restaurants who didn’t need to buy so much at once. It wasn’t until about 2003 — after Farnach graduated from Syracuse University, where he studied finance, and joined the business — that the focus turned toward growing it into something more. All Seasonings Ingredients imports spices from around the world and then bottles them — but it’s more than just putting some garlic powder in a bottle. The company can blend spices and customize the product on several levels including granulation size and potency. It serves the food service, industrial, and retail industries and does private-label work for clients. “We focus on customer service,” Farnach says. That means from the label to the spice itself, products are consistent and meet the customers’ needs. All Seasonings is one of just a few privately owned companies that both imports and bottles product ingredients, he says. Most companies do one or the other. While it can be challenging, the effort allows All Seasonings to employ more people, have better control over its supply chain, and the most control over the finished product. That focus has paid off. In 2004, the company had about five employees and imported about 100,000 pounds of spices. By 2023, the business had grown to employing 106 workers and importing 30 million pounds of spices. All Seasonings Ingredients has seen explosive growth over the past five years, including during the pandemic. Restaurants may have been closed for dining, but delivery options boomed — including pizza, Farnach notes. All Seasonings already had built a strong business in the pizza industry, and it grew even more during the pandemic. Until now, the company didn’t really push the needle on further growth because it was already operating at full capacity, he says. The company has been based at 1043 Freedom Drive in Oneida for many years, where it has both office and warehouse space. Now, it has expanded with a new 9,000-square-foot research and development facility that houses the company’s sales, customer service, purchasing, and marketing teams along with a state-of-the-art test kitchen. The 2,500-square-foot kitchen allows All Seasonings Ingredients to continue to innovate for its customers as well as for itself as it looks to expand its product offerings, Farnach says. The company markets its Papa Joe’s salad dressing mixes to restaurants and hopes to add more products along those lines. More facility expansion is also on the way as the company is building a 63,000-square-foot warehouse in nearby Sherrill to house raw materials, he adds. All Seasonings worked with Mohawk Valley EDGE, the City of Oneida, and the Madison County Industrial Development agency on its expansion projects. The new R&D facility benefited from state Downtown Revitalization Initiative funding, while the company will receive a payment in lieu of taxes (PILOT) agreement for the Sherrill warehouse. “The new additions allow us to double our business,” Farnach says, adding he expects that growth over the next five years. That means employment at the company is growing further. The new warehouse will add 10 new employees, and Farnach expects the firm will need between 30 and 40 new employees over the next five years. And that’s on top of adding automation and building efficiency along the way, he adds. All Seasonings is primed and ready for growth but won’t lose track of what sets the business apart, Farnach says. It’s the customer service, the product itself, and its insider history in the restaurant industry that help the firm understand the needs of its customers.