Life & Work with Emi Rigby

Today we’d like to introduce you to Emi Rigby.

Hi Emi, so excited to have you on the platform. So before we get into questions about your work-life, maybe you can bring our readers up to speed on your story and how you got to where you are today?
As a food lover and mom of four little ones, I was looking for an outlet where I could be creative doing something I love. I have a definite sweet tooth but have always looked to make more natural swaps at home. From living near Palm Desert, we fell in love with dates and started to make our own healthier version of date shakes made with all-natural ingredients. I continued to fall in love with the way they naturally sweeten with more nutrients and less of the downsides of processed sugar. I decided to launch The Date Stand, a California food stand offering wholesome goods, all incorporating dates! From the date shake to granola made with date honey to homemade sweet date bread, we’ve created unique items that customers have taken to. We work as a cottage bakery, offering online orders along with pop-up markets. A portion of proceeds goes to World Central Kitchen, a favorite food-based nonprofit.

Can you talk to us a bit about the challenges and lessons you’ve learned along the way. Looking back would you say it’s been easy or smooth in retrospect?
It has been a pretty smooth but slow road launching something like this with 4 young kids, but that has made it a true passion project for me. I love the creative aspect and the chance to create things that feed others in a wholesome way. Food is my love language to my family and now the community, so it has made me happy to do! It has given me great respect for all those in the food industry and all small business owners! There are so many logistics, hours of recipe perfecting, and work that goes into something like this – but it’s been so rewarding.

Thanks for sharing that. So, maybe next you can tell us a bit more about your work?
I’ve been lucky to have varied career opportunities. Out of college, I did Teach For America while doing my master’s at LMU, and it threw me right into a challenging role of teaching in low-income communities. I taught cooking as an extracurricular alongside academics and loved it as an outlet then. I then worked at Google, followed by a food startup called Zume. In the midst of this, my husband and I moved to Europe and I was able to use my food and travel blog that had been growing and travel around sharing food and travel tips. All of these experiences combined to help me launch my pipe dream in this phase of life!

What would you say have been one of the most important lessons you’ve learned?
The most important lesson I’ve learned is to have even more respect for those who have started their own business, particularly in the food industry. It takes so much love, work, and risk and this has taught me such an appreciation for them!

Contact Info:

• Website: datestand.com
• Instagram: instagram.com/thedatestand

Image Credits
Emi Rigby