Twelve years of grinding spices on Barrington Court
Rooz Spice Trading Co. is owned and run by Jenny Weiss in Paragould, Arkansas. Here is how the mill works, who we buy from, and why we do it the slow way.
A purchasing job, a bad drum of paprika, and a garage
Before this, Jenny Weiss spent nine years as a purchasing manager for a regional restaurant group covering northeast Arkansas and west Tennessee. The job was mostly spreadsheets, but it came with an education: she learned exactly how far a spice travels, how many hands it passes through, and how little of that journey is written on the box.
The turning point was a 25 lb drum of smoked paprika delivered in 2013 with no harvest date and a colour closer to brick dust than pepper. The distributor could not say what country it came from. That week she started calling growers directly.
Rooz Spice Trading Co. opened in 2014 out of a converted garage on Barrington Court with one tabletop mill, a secondhand heat sealer and eleven products. The first commercial customer was a barbecue place in Jonesboro that bought forty pounds of black pepper and told two other kitchens.
What changed, and what didn’t
Today the mill occupies a purpose-built room, runs three grinders and a sifting line, holds a State of Arkansas food manufacturing licence and an FDA facility registration, and ships to 41 states. The daily rhythm is unchanged: whole spice goes in, small batches come out, orders leave within two business days, and Jenny Weiss still signs off on every incoming lot before it is accepted.
Business at a glance
- Legal name
- Rooz Spice Trading Co.
- Owner
- Jenny Weiss
- Founded
- 2014, Paragould, Arkansas
- Facility
- 1131 Barrington Court, Paragould, AR 72450
- Phone
- 870-586-2684
- welcome@roozspices.com
- Hours
- Mon–Fri 8:30–5:00 CT, Sat 9:00–1:00 CT
- Team
- Four people, including two part-time packers
- Ships to
- All 50 US states, DC and Puerto Rico
From a grower’s field to your shelf in seven steps
Sample first
Nothing is bought on a datasheet. We request 200 g samples from every candidate lot and smell, taste and grind them side by side against our current stock.
Contract the lot
We buy a defined harvest lot, not an open-ended supply, and pay a deposit up front so the grower is not financing us.
Independent testing
Incoming shipments are sampled and sent to a third-party US laboratory: salmonella, E. coli, lead, cadmium, and adulterant screening for the categories where fraud is common.
Cold storage, whole
Accepted lots go into sealed food-grade drums in a climate-controlled room at 62°F, still whole.
Grind against demand
We mill to a 30-day forecast, in batches under 40 lb, with the grinder chilled between runs so volatile oils don’t cook off.
Hand pack and date
Filled by weight, sealed, then labelled with origin, harvest year, mill date and lot code. Two people check each run.
Ship within 48 hours
Packed in recycled corrugate with paper void fill. Tracking goes out by email the moment the label prints.
Four of us, and everyone touches the product
Jenny Weiss
Owner & buyer. Sources every lot, sets formulas, answers the phone most days. Twenty-one years in food purchasing and production.
Marcus D.
Mill lead. Runs the grind schedule and sifting line, keeps the maintenance and sanitation logs. With the company since 2017.
Rhea T.
Orders & packing. Handles retail fulfilment, wholesale invoicing and the returns queue. Also the reason the labels line up straight.
Sam O.
Weekend packing. Part-time, mostly Saturdays, mostly the pantry-jar line during autumn.
Come by the mill
We are a working facility rather than a shop, but if you're in Greene County and want to smell before you buy, call ahead and we'll set out the sample tray. Saturday mornings are easiest.