This adventure, however began long before I even knew it!

Hi, my name is Laurent Empereur, I was born and raised in the French Alps in a small town called Bourg-Saint-Maurice. Growing up my parents owned and ran a restaurant, with my mother working in the industry until retirement. By age 13 I enlisted in cooking school and spent the next seven years learning the craft at school, in various high-end restaurants and hotels in France including working as the dishwasher at my mom's (she wanted me to really understand what I was getting myself into!)

Over the past 25 years I have worked in Michelin stars restaurants, castles in the UK, and farm to table establisments, starting at Peter Hoffman's (largely regarded as the chef that started the whole movement here in the US) Savoy Restaurant in Soho, NYC, back in 2001.

I loved working in that industry and came close to opening my own place even but things didn't pan out and maybe that was for the best because after this setback is when I started thinking about hiking the Appalachian trail and reconnecting with the Great Outdoors!

After researching what people eat on long distance hiking trips it became clear to me at the time that my only option was bringing my own food. A little more research naturally brought me to dehydration so, I bought a dehydrator and got to work!