Meet the Team

A creative force to be reckoned with, Amina Harris, has been a powerhouse for Z Specialty Food through the good times, the hard times, and the times most people have already forgotten about. Amina is a graduate of the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor where she worked on the school paper, among a host of other extracurriculars. She has run her own soft sculpture business, has a degree in education and taught in various capacities over a 30-year period, runs her own jewelry business, and is the founding director of the UC Davis Honey & Pollination Center at the Robert Mondavi Institute for Wine & Food Science. In her spare time, she enjoys yoga, biking, traveling and helping keep our paperwork straight here at Z.

Ishai Zeldner has done it all. In fact, he's the reason this whole thing got started! Ishai is still involved in the day to day operations here at Z, ever since 1979. He must really like us! Ishai loves getting out into nature and knows how to take advantage of those precious relaxation moments.

Josh has been stickering the lids of Moon Shine's products since he could say, 'honey'! So, let's face it, his decision to join the family business full time in 2009 didn't come as much of a shock to anyone...except himself. Josh is a graduate of the University of Colorado at Boulder, and an avid saxophonist, frisbee tosser, hiker, biker, and hammock hanger.

Who you gonna call?! Katie McCowan! She is literally the person who is waiting here to answer your calls. Ok, not all the time, but at least during business hours! She is also the loving mother of two, and a graduate of Woodland Community College. We don't know what we would do without her. Katie is an adventurer at heart, and will happily climb a mountain after work on a Wednesday. I wouldn't be surprised if she was also a world class kickboxer.

When we first asked Amanda to come in for an interview, she wrote back, "I am under a car, just finishing an oil change. Be there in 20 minutes." We knew this was not your ordinary Amanda. She's a character and we're glad to rely on her for your production requests. Need a barrel of honey yesterday??? She's on top of it, she's got that order on lock!

Known around here as Bdub Wonder, Ben is the most precise applicator of gold stickers on the tops of our lids that I've ever encountered. He can also make a mean hot sauce. Knowing how to put quality ingredients together in the form of food that our crew can enjoy together is a special thing, and Ben seems to have it down pat. He's our go to person when there's a hook to be hung, a shelf to be placed, or a deck to be built. Although we've never seen his moves, he builds his own skateboard decks and he's the real deal; an old school sk8erboi! Ben keeps our warehouse organized and makes sure your orders go out as soon as humanly possible (and sometimes faster!)

Adam once befriended a magic praying mantis, and rode with it around his yard like Jackie Paper did with Puff the Magic Dragon. Do we judge him for it? Yeah, a little...but we would never let that get in the way of his work. And, by that, we mean that we won't let him bring his praying mantis to work...not because we don't believe it exists, but because the health department might have something to say about it. I mean, if it were up to us...we'd have a whole team of praying mantis' working very precisely, and very slowly. Of course they'd have to be pretty big praying mantis' and we would have to make sure that they understood that they can't eat all the honey before it gets to the customers, and that if they got mad at each other they couldn't just bite each other's heads off because that would be a cold, bloody mess...but Adam would know exactly how to handle a situation like that.