Holyoke Hummus Company
Holyoke Hummus Company has always been driven by community, from its inception as an idea on the streets of New York City, the land of the food truck, to its relatively new place on the shelves of co-ops across New England. John, the owner of Holyoke Hummus, spent some time traveling to New York City for work and was inspired by the culture of the falafel truck there. You can get falafel on every corner in the city. It’s a reliable, predictable part of life that many people plan their days around.
When he and his wife, Dawn, settled in Holyoke, MA they realized there wasn’t a whole lot on offer in terms of Middle Eastern food. They decided to honor the falafel truck tradition by bringing The Great Garbanzo, their own food truck, to life in Holyoke after a bit of time working markets with a tent and table. Many can attest to the special community that forms around food trucks, some cultivating a cult-like following. HoHumCo certainly has their fair share of regulars to this day and the food truck business is still a thriving and important part of the business, as evidenced by their logo.
The food truck started as a “let’s just try it out on the weekends” thing and grew over the past ten years to include a successful hummus wholesaling business. We are very glad about that because we love this hummus! The Brattleboro Food Co-op was actually the very first wholesale account for Holyoke Hummus, which we are very proud of. The wholesale side of the business started small, with one production run consisting of less than one full, 40 quart batch. These days John mixes up three full batches of hummus on production days to fulfill orders. This growth has come very organically through the brand recognition John and Dawn have built up over the last ten years going out into the community with The Great Garbanzo. They are also very committed to putting regular tastings on their schedule and directly interfacing with as many people as possible. This face to face brings some of the community of the food truck world into our Co-op, other Co-ops, and markets across New England. John and Dawn are concentrating on continuing to grow the wholesale side of their business, but they are keeping their delivery distance to a one-day drive for now. They enjoy being a local business.
The official tagline for Holyoke Hummus is “hummus flavored hummus”, which is a delightfully cheeky way of saying the product is simple, natural, and clean – exactly what Co-op shoppers are looking for in a local product. The ingredients required to make hummus do need to be imported, but all of the processing and packaging is done in Massachusetts, in the South Deerfield kitchen facility. Dried chickpeas are soaked overnight, rinsed, and then boiled. There is then a very strict timeline for cooling the beans from 140 degrees down to 41 degrees so that no bacteria is allowed to develop. This happens if the cooling process takes too long, so Holyoke Hummus has very strict protocols in place to ensure this doesn’t happen. At Holyoke Hummus, everything gets mixed in to the beans as cold as possible after they are boiled. Instead of mixing with water, they mix with ice. The tahini is kept chilled and is then poured over ice into the mixture. They have even perfected the mix time to be sure the ice is processed and the hummus is perfectly smooth by the end of the process. These are the precautions that can be taken when you have a small team that truly cares about the product watching over the entire production process.
Wholesaling has been an interesting addition to the Holyoke Hummus business. John says that the most fascinating part is thinking about how, at any moment, someone could be eating his hummus and he doesn’t even know it! He’s gotten so used to serving the product himself and it still tickles him that people can now have it when he’s not even there. The Holyoke Hummus community is certainly growing, but John and Dawn still consider it a community.
Written by Sarah Galgano
