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When asked why he persevered, Bossen cited “the optimism disease” from Salman Rushdie’s 1981 novel, Midnight’s Children. “I think it can get people through really hard times but also keep them mired in hard times,” he observed.

Bossen’s father, a carpenter with a small woodworking company, provided an example, too. “I remember growing up and watching him be the last person to cash his paychecks,” he said.

Bossen almost skipped college: He had a hard time justifying the expense — especially since he had no idea what he wanted to do. But the New Jersey native had fond memories of snowy visits to Vermont with loads of cousins, so he applied to Green Mountain College in Poultney and landed a substantial scholarship.

During his sophomore year, Bossen started a biofuel cooperative. “I would take a grocery cart from Shaw’s and go to the different restaurants in town, pick up their used frying oil [and] bring it back to an empty dorm to filter through old jeans,” he explained.

The venture taught him “how not to run a business,” Bossen said dryly. A professor had helped seed the project with some grant funding, which led to another epiphany: Bossen determined to build something that people valued enough to spend their money on.

He also worked on the college’s draft-powered farm. Even as he recognized that it was a “completely financially unsustainable, overly idealistic farm,” Bossen found “every aspect of it just life-affirming.”

Bossen has eaten mostly plant-based since he was 16. He began making his own veggie burgers from scratch because he saw room for improvement. “There’s just no joy in that salted cardboard,” Bossen said with a laugh.

Then he started thinking about it as a business opportunity and a way to support local farms. “Every grocery store, every restaurant had these really lousy burgers that weren’t doing anything to participate in the local food economy,” he said.

“You know that Annie Dillard line, ‘How you spend your days is, of course, how you spend your life’?” he paraphrased. “Cooking with people for our community seemed like the most life-affirming thing I could do.”

Greg Cox, who owns Boardman Hill Farm where Bossen first made his burgers, has mentored generations of mission-driven students. “Joe was just so filled with ideas and energy. He wanted to change the world,” Cox recalled. Bossen stood out for his work ethic. And, the farmer said, “He wanted to make sure everyone else did well around him.”

It took Bossen time to learn that he needed to look out for himself, too.

In 2011, he moved Bean Crafters into the Mad River Food Hub in Waitsfield, where it stayed until its 2015 move to Warren. The business grew and diversified to include catering, new products, even a short-lived foray into a University of Vermont campus café. “We went from one and a half employees to 16,” Bossen said. “It was exhausting but kind of exhilarating and affirming.”

Mad River Food Hub founder Robin Morris has worked with many visionary entrepreneurs. He never doubted that Bossen would be successful — eventually. “His food is very authentic, and that carries him a long way,” Morris said. “He just had to find a way of doing business around that authenticity.”

One challenge: “Joe’s lack of self-interest was sometimes detrimental to his business,” Morris said.

Five years in, despite steadily increasing sales, Bossen acknowledged, “I was not able to pay myself a dime.” To make ends meet, he worked weekends tending bar, and his frustration grew.

“I was trying to do all this stuff that I found really meaningful,” he said, “but the best way that I could get paid was [serving] a drug, basically.”

Finally, it dawned on Bossen that he had amassed enough experience and contacts to land a job doing meaningful work for someone else. The realization that he had options was empowering. “It took me a long goddamn time,” he admitted, but “I committed to valuing myself and my time.”

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