The Grovac Story

Who is Bill Groves? What was his path to the development of what is today known as the Grovac™ Process? These are just a couple of the questions you may be asking as you review the CulinaryPrep™ product literature or independent test results on the Grovac™ Process.

Today, Bill Groves is a retired registered pharmacist and entrepreneur from Rogers, Arkansas. The story of how he came to develop the patented, innovative Grovac™ Process begins many years ago. You’ll see that Bill’s story is similar to many of the stories you read about early innovators. It started by identifying a simple problem, but ended up delivering a solution to a much larger need.

After he came home from military service in the 1950s, he decided that college was the obvious next step. With an interest in health and wellness, Bill decided to study pharmacy. After graduation, he opened a small chain of pharmacies in Arkansas which he ran for a number of years before selling them off in the mid 1980s, due in part to his frustration with political bureaucracy in the medical field.

Looking for something to do after retirement, Bill opened a restaurant that featured Southern cooking, notably catfish, a personal favorite of his. Bill wondered, however, why his food service supplier could not furnish him with consistently good-tasting catfish fillets. This question led him to the laboratory, where he tested catfish and learned that this problem with inconsistent taste plagued the entire restaurant industry. An organic compound called geosmin, which is absorbed from the pond environment by the fish during the growing process, was giving it the “off flavor” that troubled Bill.

Hoping to find a way to rid catfish of this "off flavor", Bill put his scientific inclinations to use and began experimenting with natural ingredients, organic acids and a vacuum tumbler. After ten years of persistent testing, Bill finally discovered the answer to the catfish’s "off flavor" and freshness problems. What he didn’t know at the time was that not only had he found a way to consistently prepare great tasting catfish, he had also come up with a solution to a larger, more pressing safety issue in our food supply, as well as a way to extend the shelf-life of food.

With these developments in hand, the Bill Groves story was about to start a new and exciting chapter. Realizing that he had happened upon a ground-breaking opportunity, Bill obtained financial backing for a new venture. After applying for and receiving a patent on what would now be known as the Grovac™ Process, Bill started a new company, Grovac Systems International. It was now 1995, and Bill was off and running to build a business improving the taste of catfish fillets. 

Bill’s next step was to pursue further scientific testing for his discoveries. This led him back to several independent testing and university laboratories where he spent years testing multiple variations of the process. These tests confirmed that his process not only got rid of the "off flavor" in fish, it also substantially reduced unsafe impurities in food, including both pathogenic and spoilage bacteria, as well as free iron and oxygen radicals that are often cited as contributors to illnesses such as cancer. Bill claimed this significant discovery was "not his intelligence, but simply a gift from God."

Whatever the source for this discovery, the Grovac business model was immediately expanded to include building a business that would provide producers, processors and retailers with a safe, simple and inexpensive microbacterial solution, using all natural ingredients, to combat food borne bacteria, extend shelf-life and restore food to freshness. The Grovac™ Process has been applied to produce millions of dollars worth of fresh tasting catfish fillets, and is being used today to improve the quality of food, including fresh meat, fish and produce, on three continents.

Ned Thornton, also a pioneer in the food industry, worked with Bill Groves for many years to develop the equipment needed to maximize the results of the Grovac™ Process. In fact, Ned is the developer of the first small commercial vacuum tumblers sold in the U.S.

Rusty Rainey and Dan Neumann, two businessmen with extensive experience in consumer goods and food products, were looking for vacuum tumbling equipment when they first met Ned Thornton. They were intrigued by the conversations they had with Ned concerning Bill Groves’ discovery. Not only were they drawn to the Grovac™ Process due to its ability to make food safe for consumption; they also envisioned other possibilities.

With their experience in the seasoning and flavors business, the three entrepreneurs had the idea that by combining spices with Bill’s patented Grovac™ Process, a variety of flavors might be infused into meats and other foods and also receive the health benefits of the Grovac™ Process.  They were right, and this innovative combination was the birth of Creative Culinary Solutions.

Creative Culinary Solutions began by selling tumblers to restaurants in industrial sizes first. Based on their commercial success, the Creative Culinary group then developed CulinaryPrep. The first product of its kind for in-home use, CulinaryPrep is a smaller version of the same tumbler used by restaurants and food companies throughout the country. CulinaryPrep gives individuals the ability to prepare great tasting, fresh food that is guaranteed to be free from unhealthy impurities in the comfort of their own homes.

What started out as an experiment by Bill Groves in 1984 to simply rid catfish of its "off flavor", has led us to where we are today—the introduction of the only kitchen appliance that can ease consumers' concerns about food borne illnesses and their personal food supply.