I maintain an ever-growing list of woke companies on my website to help consumers make informed decisions. About half of the companies on the list are there based on reader suggestions. I get a lot of spicy feedback, but I never could have imagined that a reader tip could inspire me to proclaim Penzeys, a retail spice chain, America’s wokest company. That’s right, Penzeys—not Ben & Jerry’s, not Patagonia, not Disney, not Nike. Penzeys Spices. Here’s why.

Penzeys is an upscale spice chain that also sells kitchen and home accessories. The privately held company claims hundreds of thousands of catalog customers as well as retail locations in 24 U.S. states. A reader, Mike, recently wrote me to complain about an “About Republicans” blog post on the Penzeys website written by the CEO, Bill Penzey. My jaw dropped as I read Penzey’s rant. Here are a few excerpts:

Remember when your distrust of big city types, and your deep-rooted beliefs in paying your debts, respecting your marriage, raising kids willing to serve, honoring your word, and going to church every week had you voting for Donald Trump over Joe Biden all because Biden’s son had a computer? Or how you couldn’t vote for Hillary because she was over-prepared and used emails? . . .

Going forward we would still be glad to have you as customers, but we’re done pretending the Republican Party’s embrace of cruelty, racism, Covid lies, climate change denial, and threats to democracy are anything other than the risks they legitimately are. If you need us to pretend you are not creating the hurt you are creating in order for you to continue to be our customer, I’m sad to say you might be happier elsewhere. . . .

[Decades ago we used to buy routinely from Penzey’s because we lived somewhere we couldn’t regularly get decent, reasonably priced spices, and I cooked regularly enough to use them up. Then we got a catalogue with an insert that had such an offensive rant in it, I flipped. WTF is THIS doing in a SPICES catalogue? Along came the innerwebs and I found out about this nutjob. I also found his family’s company now run by his sister I believe, who have disavowed everything this Lefty lunatic has done to ruin them as well as himself. They just want to sell everyone the best products they can find. We just got another box from their online store yesterday. ~ Beege]