Introduction: from farmhouse kitchen to industry giant

It was 1950. Mildred and Earl Reser had left their jobs at Billy Bo's restaurant on Second Street in Hillsboro, Oregon, to try their hand at making potato salad in quantity. Buying potatoes 50 pounds at a time and doing all the work by hand in the kitchen of their farmhouse north of Cornelius, they nurtured Mrs. Reser's Salads step by tiny step, undoubtedly too busy to even think they might be laying the groundwork for an industry giant.
But that's exactly what they did. Fifty years later, Mildred and Earl's farmhouse operation is Reser's Fine Foods, a company recognized as one of the nation's premier manufacturers and distributors of high-quality refrigerated food products to the grocery and food service industries.
The journey has been an adventure marked by calculated risk-taking, innovation, leadership, commitment to quality and growth, an attempted takeover, dedication to customers and employees, a sense of humor, and fun.
The Cornelius Years >