Small Team
The People Behind the Jars
Meet the Pickle It Up Team
Team is the right word for what happens at Pickle It Up, even though there are only two of us doing the day-to-day work. Every homemade pickle kit and every jar of kosher dill pickles that ships out passes through the hands of the same two people who started this business back in 1990.
There’s no assembly line here, no outsourced production run in a warehouse somewhere just a small team working out of a real kitchen in Charleston, South Carolina, using the same cold-brine method and the same spice blend Jack developed more than three decades ago.
We think that matters. When a team stays this small, every batch gets real attention, the kind you can’t get from a factory line. Below, you can read more about the two people behind the team where they came from, how they ended up making pickles for a living, and what keeps them doing it more than 30 years later.
Jack Kahn – Founder
Jack Kahn founded Pickle It Up in 1990, back when it was still called Jack’s Pickleworks. He started with one simple goal: bring real, small batch kosher dill pickles to a Charleston community that took its food seriously. Using a carefully developed spice blend and a cold-brine method that skipped cooking and shortcuts entirely, Jack built a reputation as the Lowcountry’s go-to source for pickles that actually tasted like something.
At his busiest, he was supplying pickles to more than 50 restaurants across Charleston, from neighbourhood diners to white-tablecloth dining rooms. These days, Jack’s focus has shifted from wholesale supply to something more personal, putting his original 1990 recipe directly into the hands of home cooks through the E-Z homemade pickle kit. Every kit that ships out still uses the same spice blend, the same brine method, and the same standards Jack set on day one.
Alexis Kong-Van De Weil – Co-Founder
Alexis Kong-Van De Weil joined the team in 1996, after a long friendship with Jack led her to see potential in what had been a one person kitchen operation. Alongside her friend Nora, Alexis helped turn Pickle It Up from a solo project into a real, three person team. Together they expanded the product range beyond the original kosher dill and deepened relationships with local farmers.
They also brought Pickle It Up to Charleston’s farmers markets for the first time, putting jars directly into customers’ hands instead of only supplying restaurants.
It was that direct contact with home cooks that sparked the idea for the pickle kit itself: people didn’t just want to eat the pickles, they wanted to know how to make them. Alexis has been part of translating that 35 year old recipe into something anyone can make at home, kit by kit.
That’s the whole team, and that’s exactly how we like it. If you want the fuller story of how a two person team in Charleston ended up shipping pickle kits across the United States, our About page walks through the entire journey, from Jack’s first batch in 1990 to the kits we ship today.
We’ve also been lucky enough to have that story picked up by outlets like the Post & Courier, which covers a lot of the food culture here in the Lowcountry.
It’s a strange thing to be recognized for, honestly we never set out to be written about, we just wanted to make good pickles the way Jack always had. But if a small team doing things the slow, old-fashioned way is worth a mention, we’re not going to argue with that.
If you’re curious what the next 30 years of this team looks like, the honest answer is probably a lot like the first 30. Same kitchen, same spice blend, same two names on the label.