Food People #005: Rachel Simons & Seed+Mill

Rachel Simons is CEO and one of three women co-founders of Seed+Mill, a NYC-based sesame brand famous for their Tahini and Halva products. What started as a small kiosk in Chelsea Market in 2016 has blossomed into a national brand featured in grocery chains, specialty shops, restaurant menus, and more.

Seed+Mill is the first brand I think of when anyone mentions Tahini or Halva. I lived in NYC before moving to LA in 2020, so I was well aware of this incredible startup in Chelsea Market when it opened. It brings me great joy and pride as a New Yorker to see how far Seed+Mill has come.

Rachel and I first connected earlier this year when I reached out to collaborate with Seed+Mill for LEXINGTON BAKES’s first vegan cookie, which is, of course, tahini-based. I was immediately overwhelmed by Rachel’s kindness and welcoming personality and her generous openness to partner with a small brand. She is a founder who lives her brand’s ethos to “inspire the community to explore the world through food.”

I’m honored to share Rachel’s path from corporate lawyer in Sydney to Sesame Brand founder in NYC and now cookbook author.

Bon Appétit! - Read Time: 15 Minutes

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Part I: Business

Lex: Describe your path to working in food.

Rachel: It was one big happy accident.

I started my career as a corporate lawyer and I worked in law for 20 years. While I was working as a lawyer, I would travel, which was my passion, and I would cook, which was my other passion.

I have traveled a lot and lived in many countries. My happy spot when traveling is visiting a grocery store or eating in a local restaurant. I love immersing myself in a local environment from a food perspective. That was always what motivated me around food.

I've traveled and met a lot of people along the way. I ended up moving to New York in 2014 because my husband had a career opportunity here. My kids were six and eight and I wanted a break. I thought I would eventually sit for the New York bar exams or do something else, whatever that may be. But if I'm being honest, I thought it would be a one or two-year trip to New York and then I thought we would move back to Sydney. 

When I moved to New York, I fell in love with the city.

We've been here for 10 years and I love living here. I ended up meeting a couple of other women and we were all between careers. One of them was a lawyer as well and the other one had been a marketing executive. The three of us got together and we traveled to similar places in the world and were all called to do something entrepreneurial in food.

One of the things we all had in common was that we all had lived in the Middle East. We were passionate about Middle Eastern food and cooking with ingredients like tahini which is one of Seed+Mill’s most important products.

When we got together, I honestly thought I would start a shop or a little business and sell some tahini, then I'd go back to Australia and continue my career in law. One thing led to another and the business grew. My kids were happy here.

Eight years later, I'm still in the food industry.

I love it when businesses bloom organically like this because the focus is wholly on the product.

How has life changed since owning a food shop?

Working for another person or company is extremely different from an entrepreneurial experience. It's been incredibly rewarding. That feeling of building something, whether it's a good day or a bad day, I know I'm always building; I'm building something and I'm wearing many, many hats. 

It means that I'm on call 24/7.

I don't think I've taken a day off where I haven’t looked at a laptop or a phone in eight years. When you run your own business, even when you go on holiday, it's hard to switch off. Working for yourself versus working for someone else is a mindset shift. It can be very demanding on myself and my family.

What has been the most shocking part of your food journey?

There's been a lot that shocks me, like grocery stores.

Before I worked in the food industry, I would see all the things on the shelf and see pretty packaging or good marketing or a delicious product and that's all I would see. When I go into a grocery store now, I have an immense appreciation for what goes into getting that product on the shelf.

Now when I see a pint of ice cream, I think, where was the milk grown? How was the milk produced? How did that get to the ice cream factory? Who designed that package? How did the package get on the shelf? Was there a distributor? Was there a merchandiser? How are they marketing? What discounts are they doing?

It is extraordinary how many things go into getting something on that shelf. I'll never look at a jar of peanut butter the same way. 

Getting on the shelf is only one part of it. The next part is getting it off the shelf - how do you convince people to purchase your product, repurchase your product, give you feedback, and recommend the product to their friends? It's getting into the store and then getting out of the store.

It's a world of work I had no idea existed.

Knowing everything you know about retail now, would you do it again?

Without a doubt, I would do it again. Not only do I like building things, but I like learning. I also don't want to live with a sense of regret. I think for most of us,  it's worth giving it a shot. Just go into any process of building in retail with your eyes wide open. Make sure you have good mentors or a good advisor who will tell you or help you understand everything.

I would regret not having given this a try.

It's been really interesting - you learn a lot and you meet a lot of great people. If it doesn't work, you can apply your learnings to your next business. You might choose to get out of the food business, but at least you won’t wonder what it would have been like. 

I love what you said about using your intuition. That’s what's exciting about the food world - it's not a cut-and-dry formula, like a recipe. Everyone has their unique path to landing in food, and still, it's a shared experience. We all somehow land in food at some point in our lives.

Food is the most universal way to communicate and to show love. I'm writing a cookbook and I say a lot in the book that I show love and care for someone by feeding them or having them in my home. It doesn't matter what the recipe is or how good the food is - it's how that person feels when you make the effort to feed them. 

On the way to this conversation, I happened to pass by people yelling at each other in front of my store.

I looked at the person next to me who was a bit upset and I said, “Hey, what's your name?” She said her name was Marina and I heard she had an accent. I asked her where she was from, and she said she was Ukrainian. I told her I've got a store in Chelsea market and invited her to have an ice cream together.

She walked back with me to my store and I gave her an ice cream. We had a five-minute conversation and she left.

I love the way you can have a quick ice cream with a stranger. Food bonds people - that's what I love about our industry.

It's a small gesture with a massive payout. It's a tiny little thing that does so much good for the world.

As a Ukrainian, she knew what we sold. That is one of my biggest business challenges -  a lot of people don't know what halva or tahini is or what it's made from. As an Eastern European, she had grown up eating halva, so she was even more excited that I was selling something that felt nostalgic to her.

Tell me about going from storefront to CPG and now, a cookbook.

I wouldn't say it was a very strategic decision. We started as a retail store. Our e-commerce channel started because we got a call from the New York Times.

They said they were writing an article about halva and they had looked at our website. They asked if we were able to add e-commerce capability because if we were written up in the Times, people might want to try our product. I asked when the article would be published and they said in two weeks. 

I hired my co-founder’s 17-year-old neighbor to build our website. It went live at midnight before the article came out. That was how we ended up starting a direct-to-consumer channel.

Our wholesale or CPG channel started because Whole Foods approached us early on and said they were interested in what we were making because they saw an opportunity in the market for a clean-label halva.

All of the brands available in a CPG format included ingredients that weren't acceptable to Whole Foods. They were looking for what we sold. We were lucky in that respect - that channel came to us. 

When we started, I honestly had no idea what I was doing. I didn't know what a distributor was. I didn't know what a UPC (barcode) was and I didn't know how to build the package for CPG versus retail / in-store. All of those decisions weren’t decisions - they were opportunities that came to us.

I was just eager to learn. I can wholeheartedly tell you that I have made every single mistake in the book. We've grown slowly and carefully - I'm very careful. I heard a lot of horror stories from other brands who said yes to accounts that were too big for them too soon. 

I've had to fight my urge to say yes to everything. When Whole Foods rang I said yes, but then other people started to ring. That's all great but if you don't have the cash flow, team, or manufacturing capacity, you'll go backward quickly if you keep saying yes. It's been a push-and-pull. 

So many people are excited to say yes to everything without realizing it could destroy your business. Even if a retailer says there’s demand, it’s up to you to do your research before you take a risk on that account.

Absolutely - it's more my risk than theirs. In almost every case a retailer will expect a free fill, ask for my product for free to see if it works, so the risk is all mine. They won't reorder or keep me on the shelf for very long if it doesn’t sell. If I say yes and support the free fill and it doesn't go anywhere I'm completely out of pocket. 

I will only say yes to a retailer where I honestly believe that there is a market and a consumer for our type of product.

You know that fable of the hare and the tortoise - I feel like the tortoise.

Sometimes, I look at everybody else moving a lot faster than us and that can be frustrating. I'm not trying to win a race - I just want to keep moving.

I feel the same way.

So your cookbook, that’s new news! How did that come about?

Writing a cookbook has been a bucket list task.

Reading a cookbook is like reading a novel and I've always collected them. I read them cover-to-cover. I appreciated the headnotes to a recipe and the background of the author. I like reading the acknowledgment section of a cookbook because I'm fascinated by the process and who was involved.

I got a call four or five years ago from a publisher who was interested in writing the book. I was nervous about having enough variety to write a cookbook all about sesame seeds. To find 80 different ways to use sesame felt daunting. That was my first fear.

My second fear was about being the right person to write a book about sesame. I'm not a trained chef. Am I enough of an authority? I'm a home cook who fell into the sesame business eight years ago. I had a lot of self-doubt about my right to write the book. 

The thing that pushed me to write it was deciding I didn't want it to be a book solely of my recipes. I wrote about 70 of the recipes but collaborated with 10-12 other chefs, home cooks, and foodies on recipes that included sesame seeds from different regions, cultures, and religions. These contributors helped me globalize sesame seeds.

I've worked with a Vietnamese chef, an Indonesian chef, a Taiwanese chef, a Japanese chef, an Eastern European chef, and an Indian chef. I've globalized the process and the book. It comes out in March 2025. 

We’re finishing the photo shoot and manuscript right now. I've loved every second of writing this book. When it comes out, I know I will feel proud of having gone through this process. 

It sounds truly special. Congratulations! I’ll be eagerly waiting to buy my copy when it comes out.

PART II: Food

Describe your childhood in food.

My childhood was dominated by food. I was the kid who pulled out every item in the pantry trying to concoct my own recipes. That’s what I did for fun with my friends. I have memories of being seven-years-old and pulling out butter and flour to try and bake a cake. I was too young to follow a recipe. 

My grandmother was a phenomenal cook. We didn't eat out often as kids. I don't think I ate at a restaurant until I was 18. I lived in a household where my family cooked. I never went to culinary school and my mom didn’t follow recipes. One of the challenges of writing my book was that I learned to cook through observation and intuition. I worked as a teenager and through college in restaurants.

I've probably worked in five restaurants over eight years as a waitress. I was always the waitress who was far more interested in being in the kitchen. I watched the chefs cook and would mentally take notes of what they were doing so I could replicate it when I got home.

What snacks remind you of home?

I grew up in Australia, then moved to Tel Aviv when I was 18. I moved to London when I was 24. Then I moved to Hong Kong when I was 30, and to New York when I was 39, which is where I am now.

My grandparents were in Zimbabwe and I spent most of my summers visiting them there or my family in Argentina. I traveled a lot throughout my life and I struggle to say where home is. I grew up from zero to 18 in Sydney.

So what reminds me of Sydney? Fantastic coffee. I've always loved coffee beans – I used to chew on chocolate-covered coffee beans as a young teenager. 

What were some of your food traditions growing up around the world?

For me, tradition implies a ritual and I'm Jewish so we've always had a Friday night Sabbath dinner. On Friday nights, we've always had challah.

We would start with chicken soup and then we would have a main course and a dessert. It was always a proper meal that would differ from the rest of the week which was quick and easy.

We always had guests around our table. There was never a Friday night where our home wasn't filled with guests and visitors - my mum would cook up a storm. If there were 20 people invited, there would be food for 50. 

I met my husband who is not Jewish and grew up on a farm in the middle of Australia where he had a different mindset around food and food scarcity. His family didn't have money for a lot of food. Every meal was something that they had to fight for. 

I remember he was shocked at how much food there was at our table.

When we first got together, he would get annoyed and say “You cook too much. There's too much food”. I'd say leftovers are the best. I started a tradition where we had a huge meal on Friday night and leftovers on Saturday.

That’s similar to my upbringing - an abundance of food and inviting everyone over to enjoy it.

What is your most memorable food experience?

Starting Seed+Mill is a very memorable experience, and it will forever feel that way. Even thought it will only represent one chapter of my life, I have to acknowledge how important this entire chapter has been. 

When I think about memorable food experiences, I come back to family and people that I love or people that I miss. I will forever think about my dad who loved food. He passed away a couple of years ago and I often think about some of the last meals that I had with him.

This might be bit too much, I don't want to get too emotional here but…

The last meal I had with my dad—it's not as though he was sick, he died really suddenly so it wasn't as though I could anticipate him passing—but I had made a big effort to cook him an amazing meal.

I had just randomly cooked his favorite dinner and his favorite dessert and it was definitely one of those overly abundant meals. Maybe I killed him with too much cholesterol! I shouldn't joke about that but grief is one of those things that you sometimes have to laugh at so you don't cry.

I remember that meal, I remember what I made for him, and I remember him enjoying it. It's a beautiful memory and I miss him a lot.

That's a beautiful memory. My goal is to show how food impacts all parts of our lives, so it’s never too much to share.

While I'm thinking about food memories, I'll just add that my dad was not the cook in our family. When I was growing up, my mom was always the one in the kitchen. I was in my mid-twenties when my parents got divorced and my dad ended up living alone for a long time.

He had to learn to cook and provide for himself. I was so proud of the way he embraced his cooking skills as a 70-year-old man. He loved it. He ended up becoming a really good cook. He taught my kids how to cook. When they were young, I would leave them with him and they would make brownies or cookies.

He loved spending time with them in the kitchen. It ended up being a beautiful bonding moment between a grandfather and his grandkids.

My passion for dessert comes from my grandma. Dessert was never a special occasion, it was an all the time thing. She grew up in a village in Greece, so she made everything from scratch.

How do you consider and evaluate new food as you're walking down the grocery aisles or look at a restaurant menu?

I'm drawn to fresh things. Because I like to cook, I'm always drawn to fresh produce or an ingredient where I can make something myself as opposed to a finished product. For example, I never buy frozen pizza. I don't even look at it. I'm mindful of what goes into everything. I'll evaluate a new product based on its ingredients. 

I'm one of those annoying customers who will pick up a product in a grocery store because it looks pretty, but if I turn it around and see too many ingredients that I don't recognize, I put it back down. 

I don't evaluate a restaurant menu. If it's on a menu and there's a chef who's made it, I'm going to try it. I trust that they know what they're doing and if they don't then I won’t go back to that restaurant. I like to trust and I'm pretty adventurous. I love to try different foods and new restaurants. I like to discover a restaurant off-the-beaten-path that might not be on a list.

If you're putting it on the menu and it looks great, I'm going to give it a chance at least once.

That’s a lovely way of looking at a menu. That’s going to stick with me.

What was your last great food adventure?

I took the Seed+Mill team away for an adventure up to Kingston, which is a couple of hours north of New York City. We wanted to do an activity together.

We took a ravioli-making class with a lovely woman called Rebecca French. We made ravioli with dried edible flowers. We were laminating them into the ravioli pasta and then we filled it with a mixture of different fillings.

It was such a wonderful experience to do that with the team. We all sat down and ate dinner together. I highly recommend it to anyone who has a team and is looking for a fun afternoon out.

This issue of Salt & Main is brought to you by

Part III: Dessert

This interview continues with rapid-fire questions on TikTok and Instagram. Follow @SaltAndMain on TikTok and @SaltAndMain on Instagram and don’t miss the rest of the conversation including Rachel’s favorite ice cream flavor and toppings, fav daily beverage, best international snacks, favorite NYC restaurant, what recent food she disliked and more.

Connect with Rachel

• Follow: @SeedandMill

• Shop: Seed+Mill.com

• Visit: Seed+Mill at Chelsea Market NYC

• Connect: Rachel on LI

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