Meet Jonathan Burgart | Small Business Owner & Actor

We had the good fortune of connecting with Jonathan Burgart and we’ve shared our conversation below.

Hi Jonathan, is there something you can share with us that those outside of the industry might not be aware of?
Whether its importing high quality organic food from the Mediterranean or pursuing a career in the arts, both industries have a key component: its who you know.

When importing organic olive oil, organic balsamic, and organic olives from the Mediterranean, its crucial to get to know the farmers. Visiting the estates, learning how their production works, going over lab reports, and asking to be kept up-to-date on changes in their part of the world doesn’t just add to their legitimacy as professionals: It also ensures that you are getting organic, high quality, unadulterated products. If a direct relationship with the farmer does not exist, then there is no guarantee that the product is getting fillers added, getting diluted, or other harmful steps added from a middleman.

This is also true for the acting industry, or what I’ve seen of it. Starting actors that don’t have influential family or connections in the industry, like myself, have a harder time being taken seriously and getting cast. Its understandable. What successful company wants to take a big risk on an individual who is not a guaranteed success? While having these connections is not by any means the only deciding factor of an actor’s success, it definitely plays a major role in how their career does, or doesn’t, work out.

Alright, so for those in our community who might not be familiar with your business, can you tell us more?
Mine and my Father’s family business, Healthy Harvest Gardens LLC, revolves around quality organic food form the Mediterranean. While the company is 20 years old this year, it took a lot of extensive work in order to build it up to where it is now. At one point in time, we had less than 5 organic food products. Now, we have over 20 that are imported and/or made in house by our small business. And while this may still seem like a small amount compared to larger companies, we pride ourselves on only importing or using the highest quality products. Some of these include organic, medicinal grade olive oils proven to kill cancer cells and prevent lesions in the brain that lead to Alzheimer’s, organic fermented olives that both taste fantastic and provide probiotics for digestion, and organic balsamic that contain only grape must and wine vinegar.
No part of this was easy, especially when it comes to finding the right connections to obtain these products and learning the information about these food items to educate others. For example, we found our organic, medicinal-grade Italian olive oil from Tuscany through pure luck. And after a year and a half of my father being vetted, the owner of the estate allowed us to buy some of his oil. It’s been a part of our company ever since, because of the quality of the oil and how much we enjoy doing business with the estate owner.
The other difficult aspect was, and still is, the education aspect of our company. Our company has always prided itself on healing through good food, but this comes with its own challenges. Some of these challenges includes the ever-changing information from year-to-year, and the lack of food knowledge in our society. Since the estates that supply our oil grow their olives traditionally, the amount of antioxidants, flavor, texture, and smoke point can vary from harvest to harvest. Having to learn this information to give accurate assessments of the uses and health benefits is always an ongoing process to ensure we are supplying the most recent numbers for our customers. And having all of this information is useless if we are unable to convey that information in a coherent way to each and every one of our customers. When an individual approaches us and asks us “how are your products different from what I see in the store?”, we are ready with lab analyses, proven health benefits, and ways in which to use our products. We want to be remembered for healing through good food, with no side affects. that is where our motto “Healthy food, Healthy planet” comes from.

If you had a friend visiting you, what are some of the local spots you’d want to take them around to?
Some of the most exciting places I’d take a friend to revolve round the best food spots and the arts. Depending on how long they were visiting, I’d make sure to take them to some of the local Farmer’s markets to do our shopping for groceries. Again, its about getting to know the farmers and knowing where your food comes from. I’d also make a point to take them to the Denver Central Market so that they could see my favorite food hub in Denver.
And if the planning was done far enough in advance, I’d make sure we could see a Show at the Denver Center for the Performing Arts. Every performance there has been amazing! Going along with the arts, I’d also plan a whole day trip to the Denver Art Museum. Its so big, and constantly changing, that you could spend an entire day there and still not see all of the works from various artists.

The Shoutout series is all about recognizing that our success and where we are in life is at least somewhat thanks to the efforts, support, mentorship, love and encouragement of others. So is there someone that you want to dedicate your shoutout to?
It sounds cliche, but I have my family to thank for both the small business and arts industry that I am involved in. My father was the founder of Healthy Harvest Gardens LLC, and I later became an owner after being given the opportunity to put in the time and commitment to grow the company with him. I also thank my immediate family, who were very supportive when i wanted to study Theater and acting in college. Coming from a family that did not have an artistic background for the most part, they never once tried to convince me that getting a Theater degree was a waste of time or resources. A big thank you also goes out to Brock Mason at Pioneer Entertainment, for representing me despite my lack of notable experience in the acting industry.

Website: https://www.healthyharvests.com/

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/healthyharvests/?hl=en

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/healthyharvests/