Wildbrine is bringing the age-old practice of live fermentation to the shelves of natural food stores across the country.

Founded by former Santa Rosa Junior College student Chris Glab and his business partner Rick Goldberg, Wildbrine produces kimchi, pickles and sauerkraut. They offer food produced with ancient processes and all the benefits the health food craze desires. In our age of light-speed convenience, we can forget how our ancestors spent centuries developing practices naturally superior to modern chemical preservation methods.

After 15 years spent building G and G Foods, a business producing salsas, dips and cheese spreads; Glab and Goldberg decided to sell the business. During his newfound free time Glab took a few SRJC classes in 2008. At first the classes were in the fields of sustainable agriculture, soil/plant sciences and horticulture.

“I just wanted to learn how to be a better gardener, but soon what I was learning piqued my interest in American agriculture and the future of sustainable agriculture,” Glab said.

Glab looked about his surroundings inside Wildbrine’s facility as if trying to tie everything together.

“Really this whole new business venture and my skills learned at the JC came together out of dumb luck. I stopped taking classes after the JC ran out of courses that interested me, then my business partner and I came together with this idea and started the business in summer of 2011.”

Wildbrine tries to create a closed sustainable circuit using only natural practices and wasting nothing.

“We get our cabbage from local farmers and source our other vegetables from the closest places possible. All our unusable produce goes out to hog farmers in Windsor and all our methods leave no by-products as long as the consumer recycles the container, so we give a wonderful product and leave no waste behind,” Glab said.

Wildbrine is tapping into a market with few competitors. While the beneficial effects of probiotics is well known, kimchi, sauerkraut, pickles and other live-fermented foods are just beginning to gain the fame needed to bring them to our supermarket shelves.

Most kimchi brands that you do see make the product overseas with an unnatural method. Wildbrine is produced in Windsor and its sustainable practices and quality vegan ingredients create a delicious and healthy food. Most kimchis have added MSG and protein-like fish sauce or dried shrimp to help activate the fermentation process, but Wildbrine’s recipes are gluten-free, GMO-free and vegan.

The product is as raw as possible without a single chemical preservative. Wildbrine’s products are preserved naturally using an ancient method of fermentation. Fermenting preserves and flavors the vegetables. The “live” fermenting products are still active on the shelves of grocery stores, though refrigeration slows the process down considerably.

“Preservation has become a nasty word these days. Of all the things on ingredient labels, those involved in preservation are the most mysterious, unpronounceable and often unnatural,” Glab said. “That all has to do with the state of American agriculture, which excludes the natural and time-tested methods we use here in lieu of big bucks. The reason fermentation has been used for thousands of years is because it’s safe and good for you.”

The fermentation process begins as the probiotics begin to break down the food and create a natural lactic acid byproduct. As the lactic acid and probiotics take over, they leave no room for bad bacteria and mold to grow and taint the product, leaving it safely and naturally preserved.

Wildbrine is still in its infancy, yet already successful. They appeal to a specific market and deliver a high quality product that few can compete with. It seems Glab and Goldberg have hitched a ride with the health food craze and are set to follow it to the top.