Red Kettle Kimchi

맛있겠다! おいしい! 好吃! These are all words you can use to describe products made by owner Ger Tysk of Red Kettle Kimchi (‘delicious’ in Korean, Japanese, and Mandarin, respectively), a company dedicated to making pan-Asian ferments in the heart of Belfast, Maine.

We can’t talk about Red Kettle Foods without talking about Ger Tysk, who is an exceptionally cool person. Ger grew up surrounded by a variety of East Asian influences through her immediate family, thus resulting in her interest in pan-Asian cuisine. After attending culinary school, Ger cut her teeth as a chef on traditional sailing vessels in Europe, the Caribbean, and the US! While cooking on these ships, she was forced to work with the limited ingredients available from occasional stops at port and as a result, she developed some of the earliest recipes for Red Kettle’s flagship product: kimchi!

What’s kimchi? Kimchi is a traditional, spicy fermented cabbage dish from Korea. It’s a staple food that can be found on almost every Korean table and also happens to be full of probiotics! (Good for you!) Ger founded Red Kettle Foods when she settled in Maine with the intention of establishing it as a pan-Asian brand, but the demand for her tasty kimchi was so high that she’s just recently started to expand into other excellent Asian foodstuffs like Japanese pickles and Chinese spice blends!

Ger’s mission is to use as many local products as possible in her products, thus supporting Maine’s local food systems as well as advocate for Asian-American communities and culture. We highly encourage you to seek out Red Kettle’s products at local co-ops and farmers’ markets in the Belfast area as well as directly from her on redkettlekimchi.com!