Chef Juwan Rice Launches J Rice Spice, a Brand with a Mission

Ever since starting his catering business, JR's Gourmet, when he was just a high schooler, Juwan Rice has been humbled by the support he's received from St. Louis and beyond. Now, he's excited to have a way to give his boosters a taste of his talents, even if he can't cook for them personally.

This past December, Rice launched J Rice Spice (www.jricespice.com), a spice and sauce company that he hopes to grow into a national brand. As Rice explains, this type of endeavor has been in the back of his mind for quite some time, though he was not quite sure what form it would take until inspiration struck last summer.

"I have been wanting to release a product line for people who have been watching me for years to get their hands on," Rice says. "I hadn't quite tuned into what that would be until August, when I got the idea to do spices. I wanted it to be urban and retro and not what you'd typically see in big box stores. I wanted it to pop off the shelves."

A culinary wunderkind who founded his catering company when he was fourteen-years-old, Rice has spent the past seven years cooking for both private clients and as the executive sous chef at Bait. When the pandemic forced the temporary shutdown of the acclaimed seafood restaurant in March of 2020, Rice turned his talents toward philanthropic efforts, most notably Feeding the Frontline, a crowd-funded nonprofit he started that delivered meals to healthcare workers. In just a few months, Rice and his team were able to serve 7,000 meals that fed both the bodies and spirits of those who needed the lift and set the tone for the sort of charitable work he hopes to keep doing in the future.

In the midst of those efforts, Rice also received acclaim for his burger prowess, first beating out big names in the local food scene during the Show-Me burger battle, and next competing in the World Food Championships in Dallas this past November. Through it all, Rice's spice blends have been a part of his success; at both the St. Louis burger battle and the World Food Championships, he relied upon his "Chef's Blend" spice mix to season his dishes.

Rice's "Chef's Blend" is one of the four different spice blends that make up the J Rice Spice initial launch. The three others are "Flare Blend," which evokes Cajun flavors, "Rub and Smoke" for barbecue lovers and the "Sausage Blend," a mix that enhances sausages made from a variety of ingredients, which he concocted after accidentally including the typo "seafood sausage" on a proposed menu he had submitted to a consulting client.

"I was coming up with ideas for a brunch menu and accidentally put the words 'seafood sausage' on the proposal," Rice recalls. "They said, 'That sounds incredible,' but it was a mistake. I ended up coming up with this seasoning blend and figuring out that you can use any protein to make sausage."

Rice hopes to use revenue from J Rice Spice to further his "Feed the Frontline" efforts; this time, he plans to shift the focus from healthcare workers to teachers, who he understands need that sort of pick-up in the midst of the current set of challenging circumstances. Rice also plans to launch a "buy a spice, donate a spice" program through his spice company that will benefit high school students interested in a career in the culinary field. For every spice purchased, J Rice Spice will donate a jar to students looking to learn how to build flavor.

"I have a lot of different moving parts under my umbrella," Rice says. "With the spice line, my main goal is to scale as much as possible with the nonprofit part of that as well. My end goal is to give back as much as possible. St. Louis has treated me so good over the past few years, so I want to repay that as much as I can."

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