To celebrate three decades of amazing work, we’re sharing 30 fun facts about our journey — some quirky, some unexpected, and all part of what makes IN Food unique. Dig in!
- Since 1995, we’ve won nearly 3 dozen creative awards.
- We didn’t use email until 1997 and spent a small fortune on couriers before then.
- From 1995 until early 2008, IN was known as Vavricka Juntti & Company.
- Every new employee must choose a favorite food to be immersed in for their website photo.
- IN stands for INtegrity, INvolvement, INtelligence, INsights and Ingenuity.
- In 2004, IN Food won the Minnesota Business Ethics Award.
- We still do business with one of our first clients, Pillsbury Bakeries and Foodservice (now General Mills Foodservice).
- In the past 30 years, we’ve occupied 5 different office spaces.
- Our core values are: gumption & grit, heart & soul and spirit & enthusiasm.
- We received the Minneapolis/St. Paul Business Journal’s “Fast 50” award in both 2019 and 2020.
- In 2023, we were honored to receive the “Best Places to Work” award from the Minneapolis/St. Paul Business Journal.
- We moved to the North Loop in 2010 just months after Target Field opened.
- Our first office was just 270 square feet and housed in the Kickernick Building.
- Aside from our owner, Anita Nelson, our longest term employee (Lori Gerdts-Moening) has been with IN for 29 years.
- Through our Food for All Program, IN Food has contributed $60K in pro-bono marketing services, nearly $100k in financial contributions and 125+ volunteer hours to local nonprofits working to alleviate hunger in our community.
- Each winter, we have soup days where our team takes turns bringing in soup or other delicious comfort food for a group lunch.
- At one time, about 30% of our staff had the last name “Nelson” — and no one was related.
- Our last non-food client was ABC Ramps, the large parking facility near Target Field.
- Each February, our team holds a step challenge, and you’ll often find us walking around the North Loop on even the coldest days of the year.
- We’ve done business with almost every major food company in Minnesota including General Mills, Land O’Lakes and Cargill.
- Our Food Connections group, comprised of professionals serving the food industry, will turn 20 this year.
- Our current office was home to one of the Minnesota Timberwolves back in the 1990’s.
- We start each day with a (usually bad) Dad joke at our morning status meeting run by our project manager, Dustin.
- “Je ne sais quoi” is the term we use for that little special something to surprise and delight our clients.
- Each year, we give back 5% of our profits to hunger-fighting efforts in our community.
- We’re big on shoutouts and have a Slack channel devoted to them.
- Several of our team members have been with us for over 10 years.
- Each quarter, we do a “brand test” where we blindly taste several brands of an individual food category and have a spirited conversation about which is our favorite.
- In the last 3 years, we’ve added 7 new “INfants” to our IN family.
- Each year between Memorial Day and Labor Day, we have Summer Fridays where we end the workday at 1pm.