For generations, the Vlasic name has stood for consistency and quality. First through a Detroit dairy, then as America’s most famous pickle jar with its iconic smiling stork. Entrepreneur Willy Vlasic is carrying that entrepreneurial legacy forward in his own way for a new generation with a potent combination of business acumen and ethical ethos he inherited from his forefathers.
As the head of Vlasic Bioscience, Willy applies the same family values that built one of the country’s most enduring food brands to his hemp and CBD company, which is proudly rooted in innovation and social impact.
Growing up in Michigan, Vlasic says he didn’t think much about his surname until classmates connected him to the pickle brand. “We were the pickle people,” he says. “When people asked if we were ‘that Vlasic,’ half the time I’d say yes, and the other half I’d say ‘no, I wish.’”
Willy Vlasic with his father Rick and brother Jack.
His great-grandfather, Joseph Vlasic, famously turned a family dairy into one of the country’s most recognizable food companies. “He was such a smart, generous businessman,” Vlasic says. “He took amazing care of his people, donated millions to charity and built a strong family reputation—especially in Detroit. We always felt like we had to hold ourselves to a higher standard.”
Those expectations—integrity, professionalism, respect—shaped Vlasic’s approach to business. “If we embarrassed the family, my grandfather heard about it,” he says. “Those values carry over into everything I do now.”
Vlasic says his entry into cannabis was anything but corporate. In his late teens, he earned his Michigan medical card and struck a deal with his skeptical parents: If he passed a 90-day drug test, he could start a legal grow in their basement. He did, and this pivotal moment set him on course to a lifelong career in cannabis.
Willy is flanked by his father Rick and Adam Rosenberg, Chair of The National Cannabis Industry Association (NCIA).
A friend soon invited him to Mama J’s, a 4,000-plant facility in Washington state, where he learned cultivation from the ground up. “They put me through the ringer,” Vlasic says. “I scrubbed floors, trimmed, packaged—every job you can imagine.”
At 21, while still in college, he became Michigan’s youngest licensed cultivator, authorized to grow 6,000 plants under the state’s medical program. “That experience was everything,” he says. “You can’t fake knowledge in this business. It’s the difference between surviving and scaling.”
After several years of balancing cultivation and business development in Michigan, Vlasic began exploring how hemp and CBD could open a legal path for expansion and a new opportunity to build something lasting.
organic evolution. The evolution from pickles to cannabis certainly surprised many at first, including in the Vlasic family.
About five years ago, a conversation with bus
