Public radio’s Marketplace heads Down East, visits Raye’s Mustard and Kevin Raye ’83

For the series “American Futures,” Kai Rysdall of Marketplace  and James Fallows of The Atlantic visit Eastport, Maine, home of Raye’s Mustard, owned by the family of Kevin Raye ’83.

“A lot of people who come to see the mill think they’ve come into Willy Wonka’s Chocolate Factory,” says Raye, whose great-great-uncle designed and built the mill, believed to be the only stone-ground mustard mill in the U.S. “Lots of things going around and around and up and down.”

The Raye family business dates to 1903, when the Maine sardine business was booming along the coast. Raye says there were 27 canneries in Eastport alone, and mustard was used to pack the fish. The sardine canneries are gone from Maine, but Raye’s Mustard remains.