A former cruise industry chef transforms his passion for spices into a thriving business, delivering fresh, high-quality blends to home cooks and chefs alike.
PHOTOS BY LEAH THOMPSON/SCANDIA STUDIO
By QUINN PROPST
Ward Media Staff Reporter
When the global pandemic abruptly docked Sam Spiva’s decade-long career as a cruise industry corporate chef, he turned crisis into opportunity by tapping into his most treasured culinary secret—the vibrant world of freshly ground spices. What began as a “side hustle” selling homemade spice blends has flourished into Spiva Cooking, a thriving Bremerton-based business that’s bringing restaurant-quality flavors to home kitchens across Kitsap County through 35 distinct, preservative-free spice blends that showcase Spiva’s globe-spanning culinary expertise.
“And so I started all sorts of side hustles to try to put food on the table for my family and figure out what was next,” said Spiva, who trained at the Culinary Institute of America. “I’d always wanted to start a business. Originally, I thought it’d be a restaurant or something like that, but I did a number of different side hustles. One of them was a meal delivery service to family and friends locally.”
Sam made meal kits, sourcing fresh ingredients from local farms, for family and friends. One of the meals included a freshly ground dry rub for a barbecue pork shoulder sandwich.
He decided to put the leftover spice mix on social media to see if there was any interest and within two days he sold out of the 42 pounds of spice mix.
“We realized, there’s a demand here,” Sam said. “People are cooking at home a lot more during the COVID times, and they really want fresh, flavorful foods without all the junk, all the fillers, all the preservatives, a lot of spices are just full of salt, silicon dioxide, all sorts of other things.”
The Spivas, drawing from their years as professional chefs and their passion for big, bold flavors, created Spiva Cooking to help home cooks elevate their meals to restaurant-level quality. They began working in a collaborative kitchen space, producing and testing more blends while working to become licensed by the FDA and WSDA. After several months of dedication, they moved to their current location on Lebo Blvd. in Bremerton in November 2021.
The Spiva’s bring in whole spices from all over the world, grind fresh, and blend in small batches.
“We have about 35 different spice blends that we have created,” he said. “They’re all our own proprietary recipes. So they’re inspired by all sorts of things, some by the ingredients, some by our world travels, some by our journey as chefs in the culinary industry for years.”
After they procured the Bremerton location, the Spivas expanded into bulk spices, variety spice packs and other local products.
“And then about a year and a half ago, we started to make teas as well, organic teas that we blend here, all sorts of really delicious blends that do not have any artificial flavors, preservatives, fillers, like I said, all organic ingredients, and a lot of them really great for you, too, in terms of health benefits,” he said.
Currently, Spiva Cooking has nine tea blends.
“We do have some single origin ones as well, but we have black teas, green teas, herbal teas, our approach on them holistically is that they should be again, like the spice is delicious, good to consume, but also good for you,” he said. “So we don’t add any natural or artificial flavors.”
The distinction is that many products claim to not use artificial flavors but still include “natural flavors,” which are often oils or flavorings designed to mimic specific tastes (like orange flavor that isn’t actually from oranges). In contrast, artificial flavors, like blue raspberry, are entirely synthetic and don’t occur naturally.
“We avoid both natural and artificial,” he said. “The true ingredient should speak for themselves. So we do teas, and then we blend them with other unique ingredients, like fruits or spices or herbs, with an eye on both the flavor and the health.”
Sam and Heather met in culinary school—she specialized in baking and pastry while he focused on savory cooking. These days, she handles all the grinding and is responsible for blending the spices, as well as managing much of the operations and production.
“For us, we really love bold flavors,” he said. “That’s a big part of it, like, first and foremost, it has to be delicious for people to want to eat it, right? And so we started off by picking bold flavors.”
“I grew up in Arizona,” he said. “I really love chilies. I don’t think people here, or the vast majority of people, like it really hot, and so when you say chilies, they’re scared. But I found that if you can produce some really flavorful chili based spices, seasonings, rubs, people don’t even know. They wouldn’t equate that with being a chili.”
They just think ‘wow, this has great flavor’, he said.
“We started with a lot of the big bold flavors, you know, things like the chilies, garlic, herbs, peppers that we sourced,” he said. “Stuff that was this year’s harvest and just provided that really big, bold flavor that people would find delicious. And then a big thing for us as well was, you know, the international flavors.”
The health benefits of fresh spices are another key focus for Spiva Cooking. Heather is currently studying to become a dietician to understand health benefits better.
“We bring a lot of that into our teas, but also into our spices, where we’re not adding fillers, we’re not adding artificial ingredients, preservatives, it’s all just freshly ground,” he said.
“And that was the other big thing,” he said. “We wanted to grind fresh, because it’s like coffee when you grind it fresh there in the coffee shop when you’re waiting for your espresso, you get all the smells, all the oils, all the flavors. Once it’s been ground sitting for a few months, you really lose all that.”
Finding the right spice importers involved a lot of experimentation initially, as the industry is highly secretive. However, they have built relationships with suppliers who are more transparent, which is something Spiva values greatly.
“It’s a lot of trial and error at the beginning to find the right importers because no one will really want to tell you where they’re getting their spices from,” he said. “It’s all a big secret. If you ask them, it’s like you’re opening yourself for all out war. They want to protect their secrets at all costs. But we have found some that are more transparent with their approach, which has been helpful.”
The Spivas also ordered in spices and did their own testing to see how they compared to other ingredients. The flavor quality is readily apparent, he said.
“You know, as things sit for quite a while, they lose their potency in their flavor, and they also start to develop some weird nuances to them, moldy type things, or just off flavors,” he said. We only work with about five trusted importers, and we get the majority of our stuff from them.”
“If we’re developing a new blend, we may go outside of that, but at this point, we found people we can trust and do a good job with that,” he said.
Wholesale is the largest part of Spiva Cooking’s business, with customers including specialty shops, grocery stores, and home goods retailers. Their biggest retail partner is Ace Hardware, where their products are featured in the barbecue section at over 30 locations.
Spiva Cooking is also tapping into the health-focused market, recognizing that people who meal prep—like those following fitness and nutrition plans—still want their food to taste great. Spiva and Silverdale fitness studio BC Fitness owner Brett Clark are collaborating on a meal service company to help busy people eat healthy, favorful meals to meet their fitness goals.
“I started working with Brett as my personal trainer, lifting weights, and it’s transformed a lot for me,” Spiva said. “It’s increased my business, increased my energy, and I’ve just found that it’s been such a key part of my life the last year, and part of that is the food that you eat, right?”
“And that was always the thing for me, is I know that I need to be eating healthy,” he said. “I know the things that it takes, but I’m busy running a business and I don’t always have the time to put together these meals that are great for me.”
A lot of Clark’s clients are busy professionals or people who do not enjoy cooking, but they know they should be eating healthy meals to help them reach their fitness goals. Clark has meal plans for his clients but they often struggle to follow them for lack of time.
“We just started to understand this need in the community for prepared meals that would be flavorful, delicious and help fuel your fitness goals,” Spiva said.
Over the past six months, the two have focused on market research, testing pricing, refining recipes, and developing menus. Now, they are working through logistics, including finding a location and securing permits, with plans to launch later this year.
Spiva hopes that home cooks will experience the convenience factor of his spice blends.
“A big thing for us is that we want to make cooking and cooking at that high level more simple for people,” he said. “All of our blends are chef-inspired. It’s stuff I would use in my professional kitchen. I’ve worked in Michelin level restaurants, you know, great quality restaurants all around the globe.”
“I want them to feel that when they’re cooking with it it’s like, ‘Hey, this is something that I’m cooking that could be served at a top-tier restaurant’,” he said. “And it makes it simple, quick, easy, convenient because these spice blends really simplify the process of cooking quite a bit.”
As Spiva looks to the future for his business he has a number of goals that involve a tiered approach to growth.
Spiva is focused on expanding distribution, starting with a major investment in their e-commerce presence, including a platform upgrade to strengthen online sales.
“We’re going to be doing a lot more content, recipes, more engaging contests, all sorts of fun giveaways and just ways to communicate with our customers more online as well as doing events here in our storefront,” he said. “So that’s the first part of this year.”
Then, Spiva plans to shift into focusing on distribution with the big goal of getting his products onto the shelves of markets that focus on quality, local products, he said.
Achieving that goal would require more warehouse space, bigger equipment, and more staff to produce at that capacity.
“Those are all the things on the horizon for us as we grow,” he said. “I think within that, there’s a lot of opportunity for this business. I think the meal service is probably the most concrete of plans right now. We’re always dreaming up ways that we can bring other culinary type services here to the area.”
Through starting and growing the business the biggest challenges Spiva faced were permitting delays and the logistics of starting a small business without a lot of capital.
“I think, in the get go, everything was bootstrapped,” he said. “And so the delays have been a big challenge.”
However, the Spivas weathered those initial storms and are now in the stage of business growth where they have to prioritize opportunities.
“We have more opportunities now, and it’s trying to figure out which ones, and getting the staff on, and training them and being strategic about where we really want to head next,” he said.
“I know I’ve already shared several ideas, and that’s kind of how my mind works, is all these ideas, but you have to be strategic and invest resources appropriately,” he said. I think that’s probably just my time. Time is the biggest constraint for me.
Spiva is looking forward to adding staff to help him gain time for other aspects of the business.
Spiva Cooking currently has six employees but plans to expand its staff in phases to support its growing business. In the short term, the company aims to add around 10 employees to focus on the expanding events side, including markets, festivals, shows, and barbecue events with Ace Hardware.
In phase two of expansion, as Spiva Cooking increases distribution to stores that prioritize quality local products, the team will likely grow to around 20 employees to support production. Further expansion is planned over the next year or two as the business continues to scale.
Spiva does sometimes miss the creativity of working as a chef but he appreciates the flexibility of owning a small business. It allows him more time with his family and he no longer has to work holidays plus he enjoys being a part of the community.
“I think probably my favorite part is just the opportunity to get out in the community,” he said. “There’s so many supportive business owners out there to collaborate with, especially here in Kitsap County, that I’ve just really enjoyed that process.”
Spiva finds a lot of joy in spending time to understand the needs of local businesses and getting to know their owners.
“For example, people like Vibe Coworks, we provide the tea for them, and I really enjoy getting to know Alanna and seeing what they’re doing in the community,” he said.
“And Brett, over at BC fitness, we’ve come up with a line for him, and that whole process has been great, and I’ve entered into their worlds and understood what they’re bringing to the business community,” he said. “That’s been a lot of fun, and other collaborations that have come out of that process.”
“I think in addition to that, just the ability to be creative too and bring something unique to Kitsap has been a joy for me,” he said. “Seeing people engage with our products and their lives being improved by what we have to offer here is always just exhilarating, whether it be that convenience factor, or whether it be like, hey, my meals turned out really great.”
“At the crux of it, we just have a passion for our community and for our products, and we’re excited about using our skills to really impact the community in a positive way,” he said. “As we move forward, I think we’re looking at a lot of different fun and exciting partnerships, and we love really creative ideas that can be brought to life through the collaboration of the small business community here in Kitsap.”
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