Our Farmers + Food Crafters work hard to grow and make the ingredients that go into each of our dishes.
From our sweet potatoes to our gluten-free bread and plant-based bacon, Thistle works to find the best Farmers and Food Crafters to source our ingredients from. These incredible partners provide us with ingredients to create nutritious meals with a wide array of delicious flavors. Each of our partners has their own unique story about why they grow or create the food that they do, and we are looking forward to sharing these with you!
We are grateful to be working with people that have the same mission as Thistle: to make healthier and more sustainable food. Our team takes great care to find these partners - we look at how they do business, where they source their ingredients from, and the overall taste and quality of their food.
Who They Are
At Thistle, we’re constantly searching for new ingredients, inspired by delicious dishes we’ve enjoyed growing up, in our travels, or at restaurants. We find partners that can provide us with these delicious and interesting fruits, veggies, and more through a variety of ways - through magazines, websites, cookbooks, etc., at farmers’ markets or grocery stores, and through our current network of suppliers and distributors. We are always on the lookout for people who are creating really tasty and nutritious ingredients that will add flavor, nutrition, and inspiration to our menu.
Check back often as we will be adding more stories of our Farmers + Food Crafters.
Cool Foods | Santa Monica, California
A small and mighty team takes on the ultimate challenge: to make a plant-based and more more sustainable alternative to bacon with pinto beans. And people love it, omnivores included. Read more...
Star Anise Foods | San Francisco, California
Star Anise Foods is woman- and minority-owned and they specialize in simple, ethically-sourced, whole-grain foods, inspired by a friendship and love for Vietnamese food. Read more...
Jayleaf | Hollister, California
The majority of greens — baby spinach, baby kale, spring mix, arugula — in your Thistle meals and juices come from this organic farm. Read more...
Hodo Foods | Oakland, California
From the tofu in our tasty stir-frys and bowls to the tofu that deliciously stands in for cheese, Hodo is our go-to. Read more...
Oaktown Spice Shop | Oakland, California
We’re inspired by dishes from around the world. From curry madras, to guajillo chile powder, to kimchi chili flakes, our meals are really brought to life by their unique and flavorful spices. Read more...
Muffin Revolution | Richmond, California
There's more to these muffins than meets the eye - these are "meals in a muffin". Read more...
Cult Crackers | Berkeley, California
These two friends with different backgrounds, had a shared vision to build a company that would be a "force of good". Read more...
Our Expectations
We expect our Farmers and Food Crafters to abide by our strict quality assurance and food safety protocols, providing us documentation on their production methods, product specs, certifications, and ingredient lists. We only work with partners that can honor our standards of nutrition, and, more specifically, that produce their products without the use of artificial flavorings, colors, or preservatives. Not only do we seek partners that already produce fabulous gluten-free and dairy-free products, we go a step further and ask that these partners refrain from using commonly used refined sugars and certain oils. Lastly, we encourage every one of our partners to use bulk packaging. This way, our production crew isn’t opening hundreds of small containers (jars, bags, cans, etc.) of ingredients and we can work together to cut down on packaging waste.
Finding Food Crafters
At times, we will develop a recipe that we think would go really well with a certain ingredient and go seek out that ingredient. For example, we served our Roasted Corn & “Bacon” Salad for several years using a vegan coconut “bacon” we made in house. We went this route because we wanted the dish to have that salty, crunchy, slightly smoky taste without using a hyper-processed bacon substitute. While it kind of evoked a “bacon-y” vibe, the texture and flavor still needed work. Naiha, our Senior Culinary Product Developer, found a company that makes fabulous pinto bean bacon that is made using super simple ingredients - beans, sunflower oil, salt, and yeast. So if you enjoy the pinto bean bacon that’s in many of our meals, thank Cool Foods!
Other times, we find someone who’s making a really amazing product and we find a way to develop a dish to use that ingredient. Cult Crackers is a brand that was based just a few blocks away from our production facility, which used to be in Berkeley, California. Christina, our Director of Culinary Development, reconnected with Cult Crackers at the Good Food Awards Mercantile back in 2017, and since then we’ve developed a series of snack plates and “cheese” boards using their delicious seedy crackers.
We love staying in close touch with our partners by slating meals with their ingredients on our rotating menu as often as we can! We also look forward to going out and meeting them in person and seeing their production - whether it’s a farm, a commissary kitchen, or a factory - we are happy to see the creation of these ingredients and the passion that goes into their delicious products!
Future Partnerships
As we are always testing recipes and sharing new meals with our customers, we remain on the lookout for interesting, clean, and delicious ingredients. Some products that we’ve been looking for, but haven’t solidified yet, include a source for pure vanilla bean powder, different varieties of gluten-free spaghetti or long noodles, allergen-free plant-based burgers, and yummy gluten-free, plant-based snacks like veggie chips, pretzels, etc. On the produce side, we’re always looking to introduce our customers to beautiful, tasty, and diverse collections of fruits and veggies that they may not be familiar with. Looking forward to summer, we’re hoping to bring in some wonderful stone fruit (peaches, plums, apricots, pluots, etc.) and berries!
As we continue to grow here at Thistle, we hope to continue to expand our list of Farmers and Food Crafters. We are excited to continue our search for more amazing ingredients and people who are equally as enthusiastic about including their food into our plant-based meals.
Our Farmers + Food Crafters work hard to grow and make the ingredients that go into each of our dishes.
From our sweet potatoes to our gluten-free bread and plant-based bacon, Thistle works to find the best Farmers and Food Crafters to source our ingredients from. These incredible partners provide us with ingredients to create nutritious meals with a wide array of delicious flavors. Each of our partners has their own unique story about why they grow or create the food that they do, and we are looking forward to sharing these with you!
We are grateful to be working with people that have the same mission as Thistle: to make healthier and more sustainable food. Our team takes great care to find these partners - we look at how they do business, where they source their ingredients from, and the overall taste and quality of their food.
Who They Are
At Thistle, we’re constantly searching for new ingredients, inspired by delicious dishes we’ve enjoyed growing up, in our travels, or at restaurants. We find partners that can provide us with these delicious and interesting fruits, veggies, and more through a variety of ways - through magazines, websites, cookbooks, etc., at farmers’ markets or grocery stores, and through our current network of suppliers and distributors. We are always on the lookout for people who are creating really tasty and nutritious ingredients that will add flavor, nutrition, and inspiration to our menu.
Check back often as we will be adding more stories of our Farmers + Food Crafters.
Cool Foods | Santa Monica, California
A small and mighty team takes on the ultimate challenge: to make a plant-based and more more sustainable alternative to bacon with pinto beans. And people love it, omnivores included. Read more...
Star Anise Foods | San Francisco, California
Star Anise Foods is woman- and minority-owned and they specialize in simple, ethically-sourced, whole-grain foods, inspired by a friendship and love for Vietnamese food. Read more...
Jayleaf | Hollister, California
The majority of greens — baby spinach, baby kale, spring mix, arugula — in your Thistle meals and juices come from this organic farm. Read more...
Hodo Foods | Oakland, California
From the tofu in our tasty stir-frys and bowls to the tofu that deliciously stands in for cheese, Hodo is our go-to. Read more...
Oaktown Spice Shop | Oakland, California
We’re inspired by dishes from around the world. From curry madras, to guajillo chile powder, to kimchi chili flakes, our meals are really brought to life by their unique and flavorful spices. Read more...
Muffin Revolution | Richmond, California
There's more to these muffins than meets the eye - these are "meals in a muffin". Read more...
Cult Crackers | Berkeley, California
These two friends with different backgrounds, had a shared vision to build a company that would be a "force of good". Read more...
Our Expectations
We expect our Farmers and Food Crafters to abide by our strict quality assurance and food safety protocols, providing us documentation on their production methods, product specs, certifications, and ingredient lists. We only work with partners that can honor our standards of nutrition, and, more specifically, that produce their products without the use of artificial flavorings, colors, or preservatives. Not only do we seek partners that already produce fabulous gluten-free and dairy-free products, we go a step further and ask that these partners refrain from using commonly used refined sugars and certain oils. Lastly, we encourage every one of our partners to use bulk packaging. This way, our production crew isn’t opening hundreds of small containers (jars, bags, cans, etc.) of ingredients and we can work together to cut down on packaging waste.
Finding Food Crafters
At times, we will develop a recipe that we think would go really well with a certain ingredient and go seek out that ingredient. For example, we served our Roasted Corn & “Bacon” Salad for several years using a vegan coconut “bacon” we made in house. We went this route because we wanted the dish to have that salty, crunchy, slightly smoky taste without using a hyper-processed bacon substitute. While it kind of evoked a “bacon-y” vibe, the texture and flavor still needed work. Naiha, our Senior Culinary Product Developer, found a company that makes fabulous pinto bean bacon that is made using super simple ingredients - beans, sunflower oil, salt, and yeast. So if you enjoy the pinto bean bacon that’s in many of our meals, thank Cool Foods!
Other times, we find someone who’s making a really amazing product and we find a way to develop a dish to use that ingredient. Cult Crackers is a brand that was based just a few blocks away from our production facility, which used to be in Berkeley, California. Christina, our Director of Culinary Development, reconnected with Cult Crackers at the Good Food Awards Mercantile back in 2017, and since then we’ve developed a series of snack plates and “cheese” boards using their delicious seedy crackers.
We love staying in close touch with our partners by slating meals with their ingredients on our rotating menu as often as we can! We also look forward to going out and meeting them in person and seeing their production - whether it’s a farm, a commissary kitchen, or a factory - we are happy to see the creation of these ingredients and the passion that goes into their delicious products!
Future Partnerships
As we are always testing recipes and sharing new meals with our customers, we remain on the lookout for interesting, clean, and delicious ingredients. Some products that we’ve been looking for, but haven’t solidified yet, include a source for pure vanilla bean powder, different varieties of gluten-free spaghetti or long noodles, allergen-free plant-based burgers, and yummy gluten-free, plant-based snacks like veggie chips, pretzels, etc. On the produce side, we’re always looking to introduce our customers to beautiful, tasty, and diverse collections of fruits and veggies that they may not be familiar with. Looking forward to summer, we’re hoping to bring in some wonderful stone fruit (peaches, plums, apricots, pluots, etc.) and berries!
As we continue to grow here at Thistle, we hope to continue to expand our list of Farmers and Food Crafters. We are excited to continue our search for more amazing ingredients and people who are equally as enthusiastic about including their food into our plant-based meals.
