In a growing number of grocery store chains in Kentucky, there is a brand of products with a Kentucky Proud logo sitting prominently on the shelves in the all-natural and organic aisles: Rebekah Grace.
Sporting a small image of the world with the logo "Healthy, Sensible and Always Natural," Rebekah Grace can be found on products from jams to relish and cookies to milk.
Though the variety of Rebekah Grace branded products might be new to the store shelves in many areas, it is a brand that goes back almost ten years ago to one couple's dream.
A brand concept
David King and Rebekah Grace developed the concept of a line of all-natural and organic products in the late 1990s. At that time David was working in the retail food industry and began to see a trend in the retail marketing industry toward organic products.
In the eyes of these two entrepreneurs who shared a love for the food industry, two major issues were emerging in the organic segment. First, there were a lot of producers creating healthy products who didn't know how to get those products to market. Second, retailers really wanted farm-fresh organic products, but they didn't want to deal with 50 vendors to have an organic line on their shelves.
That's when King and Grace decided to launch Rebekah Grace as an entity to take the organic, farm-fresh products to the retail outlets under a single label. Yet, like so many entrepreneurs that move into an emerging market, King and Grace struggled to get started.
"We invested a lot of our capital, time and energy into this dream, but we did not have the resources to reach the numbers to make it successful," explained King when talking about why the brand did not take off in 2000 when it was initially launched. "I also believe we were before our time in many ways; this was before organic and all-natural products were really mainstream.
Soon after the initial launch of the Rebekah Grace brand