Ken Jarosch

“Just look at the soda tax. How many lawsuits are out there to Walgreens and McDonald’s and 7-Eleven because they couldn’t program their registers and they couldn’t figure out how to train their people … it’s a real challenge … And it’s not just a customer coming in and saying, ‘hey you overcharged me on the tax.’ It’s a lawsuit.

“We all drank the cranberry juice cocktail we used to sell. We no longer sell it. We sell orange juice and apple juice – those are 100 percent juices so those are not affected by the tax – and we sell milk, not affected by the tax. So half a dozen bottles of cranberry juice cocktail, where the second ingredient is high-fructose corn syrup … we just drank those, we’re done.”

“I enjoy concentrating on the operations of my business – production planning, product development, quality control, promotions … In Illinois and Cook County my attention needs to be divided, keeping tabs on pending legislation, taking action to write my elected officials, enlightening them about the sometimes unintended, usually negative, consequences of their actions.

“Apathy can be costly.”

Ken Jarosch
Owner, Jarosch Bakery
Elk Grove Village, Ill.