• Hartford Courant, Friday, June 12, 2009 10:48 AM

When Wal-Mart wanted to carry Deep River Snacks, a line of 11 varieties of kettle-cooked potato chips, baked fries and cheese popcorn made by Old Lyme Gourmet Co., founder and president James Goldberg responded the way any rational maker of a high-end, all-natural, gluten-free, kosher gourmet product would. He said no. He turned down Stop & Shop, too, David Holahan reports.

"I don't want to be in those places. We have a gourmet product," he says. So he sells his products exclusively through independent health food stores and prides himself on taking better care of his customers than his competitors do. "We'd love to do business with high-end retailers, like Roche Bros. in Massachusetts, but not Wal-Mart," he says.

Goldberg's father was in the food business and, after college, law school and a stint at Campbell Soup, the son spent two years in his kitchen working on his first snack product, cheese popcorn. Going through 19 recipes before he felt the flavor was right, he launched the company in 2001 and expects to move 10 million bags of snacks this year in markets as far away as Japan.

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