About Us

These are our smiling faces you see, posing in front of our kitchen. We try to have a good time while making our great mustards. Our office kitties, Wuffles and Wampus, keep us in stitches and we keep each other amused while we're cutting the mustard. We hope that you feel our hands-on and personal approach while you are enjoying our products.

Our Story

Mendocino Mustard's original Hot & Sweet mustard first appeared in 1977 in the coastal town of Mendocino, California and soon became a word-of-mouth best seller. As founder Devora Rossman recalls, " I was an underpaid preschool teacher and my former partner was a struggling artist. We were about to begin selling worms for extra cash when her mother suggested we try to market her mustard recipe instead.

“Of course, we knew nothing about where to order supplies or how to market our mustard. We mixed our first batches on the kitchen table in a converted chicken coop and conducted taste tests on our friends and families. Our first business property statement listed a bowl, a whisk, a Tupperware pitcher and a spatula! I still have that pitcher; I hand-filled many jars of mustard with it and I plan to have it bronzed some day." Initially, the mustard was sold only in Mendocino, but visitors who took one jar home soon ordered it by the case for family and friends. It became obvious that a culinary classic had been born. Our second product, our beer mustard Seeds & Suds, was created in 1996, and has won numerous awards in national competitions.

These days we hand-prepare our mustards in our own kitchen overlooking the rugged Pacific coastline. We can watch migrating whales from the windows and take lunch- time walks along the old logging road through coastal headlands covered with wildflowers in spring.

We take great satisfaction in making our products ourselves, to the same exacting standards. We now use some simple equipment (our wrists couldn't take tightening thousands of caps by hand), but the mustard is still very much hand-made. We are proud of having a woman-owned and operated business, and a family friendly work environment. Our company philosophy statement says: "We take pride in hand-preparing excellent mustards, using quality ingredients, in paying fair wages, charging fair prices, and contributing part of our profit toward ensuring a healthy and fair future for the world's children."

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