The story of Skeids
Nothing is every simple in life, and Skeids is no exception. Where we are today is vastly different than where we started. Just like our journey to the present day, Your journey to get to know us has just begun.
It Started With a Ham Sandwich
The smallest ideas sometimes open the biggest doors.
During the COVID years, Mark and Jenny were walking through a grocery store when Mark made a simple observation:
“There really aren’t many flavored mayonnaises that would go good on a ham sandwich.”
It was just an ordinary moment. A passing comment. The kind of thought most people would say out loud and forget five minutes later.
But we didn’t forget it.
That one sentence turned into a conversation about flavor, not just what was available, but what wasn’t. Why did so many options feel repetitive? Why did so much of the grocery world keep circling the same familiar ideas? And why did it feel so hard to find something that could make an everyday meal feel new?
At first, it was just curiosity. A ham sandwich. A flavor idea. A “what if.”
We had no idea that one small grocery store conversation was about to send us down the path that would eventually become Skeids.
We Had to Think Bigger
Skeids evolved one step at a time.
That ham sandwich conversation didn’t lead straight to seasoning.
It led to experimentation.
We started with mayonnaise, because that was the original spark. From there, the idea kept growing. We explored hot sauces, then barbecue sauces, and continued testing what Skeids could become.
Each step taught us something.
Every version brought us closer, but none of them fully captured the bigger idea we were chasing. We weren’t just trying to make another condiment, we were searching for the best way to bring bold, different flavors into everyday meals.
That search eventually led us to dry seasoning.
Seasoning gave us something the other categories couldn’t fully offer on the same level: flexibility, variety, ease of use, and a simple way to transform the food people already cook at home.
That became the foundation of Skeids as it exists today.
But those earlier ideas were never wasted.
They were part of the journey, and part of the future too. As Skeids continues to grow, some of those original categories, like mayo, hot sauce, and barbecue sauce, may return as new chapters in the adventure.
Flavors From Around the World
The idea got bigger when we started looking beyond what we already knew.
Living and working in Ocean City exposed us to people from all over the world.
Every season brought coworkers, friends, customers, and visitors from different countries and different backgrounds. With them came conversations about home, food, traditions, and the flavors they grew up with.
That started changing the way we thought about Skeids.
Instead of asking how we could make another familiar American flavor a little different, we started asking what people were eating everywhere else.
We began researching regional cuisines, traditional spice combinations, ingredients, food history, geography, and the ways different cultures built flavor over generations.
Suddenly, the possibilities felt endless.
There wasn’t just one direction Skeids could go.
There was an entire world of them.
And that became the idea we kept coming back to:
What if one company could help people explore the world through the food they were already cooking at home?
That question would eventually become the heart of Skeids.
Skeids Was Born
World flavor needed a name, a system, and an identity.
Once we realized Skeids was going to be about exploring the world through flavor, everything started coming into focus.
Dry seasoning became the foundation because it did exactly what we wanted: it made global flavors approachable, flexible, and easy to use in everyday cooking. The same chicken, the same pan, the same meal but with one different jar, dinner could become something entirely new.
That idea became the heart of Skeids.
But flavor was only part of it.
We also wanted each blend to feel like its own adventure. Not just another label on a shelf, but something with identity, story, and personality. That’s where the mythology influence came in. Each blend became more than a seasoning, it became its own character, connected to a place, a flavor profile, and a sense of discovery.
That is how Skeids began taking the shape people recognize today:
a growing collection of globally inspired seasoning blends, each one tied to a different part of the world, each one meant to turn ordinary cooking into a new experience.
It wasn’t just about making food taste better.
It was about making dinner feel like exploration.
From Kitchen Idea to Real Business
The fun part was the idea. Then came the work.
Once Skeids had a direction, the next challenge was turning that idea into something real.
That meant developing recipes, sourcing ingredients, testing blends, designing labels, figuring out packaging, tracking costs, building displays, learning regulations, and eventually producing enough product to actually put Skeids in front of customers.
There was no big launch team behind it.
It was us.
We mixed the seasonings. We filled the jars. We printed and cut the labels. We packed the boxes. We loaded the vehicles. We set up the booths. We stood behind the tables and explained the idea over and over again to anyone willing to stop and smell a jar.
And slowly, people started getting it.
Customers came back asking for blends they had tried before. They told us what they cooked. They brought friends. Some recognized flavors from places they had lived or families they had grown up with.
That was when Skeids stopped feeling like an experiment.
It had become a real business.
Not because we said it was.
Because people started coming back for it.
More Than Seasoning
Exploring the world shouldn’t require an expensive grocery cart.
From the beginning, we wanted Skeids to be about more than simply making food taste good.
We wanted it to make trying something new feel easy and rewarding.
Most people already know how to cook the basics. Chicken. Pork. Beef. Vegetables. Rice. Potatoes. The challenge usually isn’t learning how to make dinner, it’s finding a way to keep the same ingredients from becoming the same meal over and over again.
That is where Skeids fits.
A different seasoning can take ingredients you already buy and send them in an entirely different direction, without requiring a new kitchen, a complicated recipe, or a cart full of specialty ingredients.
Just change the jar.
We also believe that kind of exploration should be affordable. Food costs matter, and trying something new shouldn’t feel like a luxury.
Our goal is to give people an easy way to experience flavors inspired by different places and cuisines while still cooking the food that already fits their life and their budget.
Because sometimes a new adventure doesn’t require a plane ticket.
Sometimes it just requires dinner.
Built by Our Family
A family like yours
Skeids has always been a family business in the truest sense of the word.
There isn’t a distant production team, a corporate bureaucracy, or a room full of gatekeepers americanizing every product.
It’s just us showcasing the roots of humanity beneath all the global political instability that tries to divide us.
We develop the blends, source ingredients, mix seasonings, fill jars, design labels, build displays, pack vehicles, attend shows, meet customers, talk with retailers, handle the website, and keep figuring out what the next step should be.
Some days that means creating something new.
Other days it means labeling hundreds of jars, rebuilding a display, answering emails, cleaning up production, or standing behind a booth for hours talking about food with complete strangers.
And somehow, all of those pieces became Skeids.
That matters to us because when someone buys one of our jars, they aren’t buying something that passed anonymously through a giant system.
They’re supporting something our family is building for the world, one blend, one jar, and one small connection to another culture through flavor.
The Adventure Is Just Beginning
There is still a lot of world left to taste.
What started with a ham sandwich has grown into something much larger than we ever imagined during that first grocery store conversation.
Skeids now represents dozens of flavors, cuisines, places, stories, experiments, mistakes, discoveries, and thousands of meals we never could have predicted when we started.
But we don’t see where we are today as the finish line.
There are still more places to explore.
More flavors to research.
More people to meet.
More flavors to share.
And eventually, the ideas that helped start this journey, mayonnaise, hot sauces, barbecue sauces, and other condiments will find their way back into the Skeids world as we grow.
The goal has never changed.
Make it easier for people to explore the world through food.
Keep it approachable.
Keep it affordable.
Keep discovering what comes next.
Because Skeids was never meant to be one flavor, one country, or one idea.
It was meant to be an adventure.
Gather the Gods.