"Harry"

The “Harry” in Harry’s Fresh Foods is Rod Harris, who earned the nickname “Harry” while serving in the Coast Guard in his teens.

In 1977, Rod was waiting tables by night, but was determined to launch his own enterprise. Thus, with the help of his brother Rick, Rod opened Harry’s Mustache, which soon became famous for its creamy clam chowder. As Harry’s Mustache grew in popularity and drew visitors from miles away with its legendary chowder, Rod found himself making more and more soup. With demand for his soups continuing to escalate, Rod found a way to save himself lots of time and energy: he created a recipe for a fresh chowder base that he only had to make once a week. Before long, Rod was making enormous quantities of the chowder base and selling them to other restaurants in addition to his own customers.

The following year, Rod took his burgeoning soup business to the next level, investing in a used food processor and two 15-gallon stockpots. He set up his new equipment in the kitchen of Harry’s Mustache and Harry’s Famous Original Clam Chowder Company was born. Rod spent the days making soup at the restaurant and dropped off one-gallon buckets of chowder base to other restaurants on his way home each night.

Eventually, soup sales soared to the point that Rod and Rick closed Harry’s Mustache, and Harry’s Soup and Chowder Company was born. In 1984, operations were moved to an actual food manufacturing plant to accommodate the additions of entrees, side dishes, sauces, gravies and desserts to Harry’s repertoire. Now Harry's Fresh Foods, the company is located in an 80,000-square-foot, state-of-the-art manufacturing plant in Portland, OR.

Anyone will still tell you that everything essential to the company has stayed exactly the same: Harry’s still uses the freshest ingredients in the same, small-batch recipes and remains committed to creating delicious, heat-and-serve home-style meals for consumers and foodservice partners.