“One seasoning, one app, endless flavor.” Warren native launches Castors
A new product launched by an entrepreneur from Warren aims to help others simplify cooking and bring families together through healthy, flavorful dishes.
It’s called Castors, a premium all-purpose seasoning solution with natural ingredients that comes with access to an app that helps curate recipes from what’s already in the fridge.
Castors is a marinade and flavor booster in a jar started by Warren native Shauna Castor and her husband, Troy.
“Launching in my hometown brought back a lot of the warm memories of being with my family at my grandmother’s house for Sunday dinners and holidays that helped us create our product,” she said. “A lot of our bonding occurred around the dinner table and eating food together.”
During their July 2 launch in Warren, a portion of the Castor’s proceeds went to Pride & Joy Today in Trumbull County, who help with literacy reading, job and workforce enablement.
“It’s my husband’s family recipe, and it’s a win because you can get a lot of flavor without the calories,” Castor said. “This is an all-purpose seasoning, but it’s just more than a seasoning. It’s really about community and helping simplify dinner. My husband worked on getting the recipe to a point where it doesn’t have too much sodium, is still flavorful and also really authentic to his culture. It tastes really amazing with vegetables.”
Castor said she and her husband spent seven years developing their product designed to simplify cooking for busy families and honoring Troy’s Caribbean roots.
“We live in a world that moves so fast, and people aren’t necessarily having enough time to sit down and have dinner every single night,” Castor said. “As a mom of two and a wife, I was always wondering if I had enough ingredients and time to cook. My husband got this recipe from his grandmother and he’d make it whenever we got married. It’s great, but it’s a lot of work. After you create the seasoning, then you have to still cook. ”
A Mahoning Valley native, Castor was working at the Pentagon in Washington D.C. when she first had the idea to bottle the family’s go-to liquid blend seasoning.
“It had become a bottleneck in our house, meaning if we didn’t have it available, we couldn’t cook certain recipes,” she said. “I had integrated it into pretty much every recipe that I made, just because of the simplicity. I can grab this one versatile thing and use it on whatever it is that I plan to make that day, from chicken and beef, to tacos and spaghetti.
To further streamline the process for making meals, the Castors also developed an app where users input what ingredients they have available.
“The app tells me what I can make with the ingredients that I have. We’re really trying to find a way to eliminate waste while also helping the person that’s in the kitchen,” Castor said. “The recipes that we have on our app are some of the recipes that we that are quick and easy that we use. Every recommendation that it provides, it shows how the seasoning can be used as an all-purpose seasoning, marinade or flavor booster. This is just the beginning.”
For the product launch, Castor served air-fryer wings with vegetables enhanced by their seasoning recipe.
“For wings, we used the seasoning and do a boil to get it to a roux before putting it in the air fryer with some olive oil. It’s not fried. I was nervous because I know being from that area in Ohio, we typically don’t eat our wings like that,” Castor said. “But we got great feedback. I could still get a ton of flavor without adding anything unnecessary or unhealthy. It’s really quick to get frozen peas and carrots, put a dollop of the seasoning in it, and enriches the flavors of vegetables.”
