Specialty Food Magazine is the leading publication for retailers, manufacturers and foodservice professionals in the specialty food trade. It provides news, trends and business-building insights that help readers keep their businesses competitive.
Issue link: https://specialtyfoodmagazine.epubxp.com/i/328566
Cheese straws | Cookie straws Cookies | tea Cookies simple, all Natural ingredients. No Preservatives & No trans Fats. N a t u r a l l y Savory topping made from Modesto almonds, sundried tomato shavings, and fl akes of sweet pepper. Versatile and zesty. Recommended for salads and cheese plates, especially ones including mozzarella and burrata. Catalog #80020MILL RITROVO ® ITALIAN REGIONAL FOODS, LLC (20 6) 9 8 5 -1635 • r itrovo.c om FOR RECIPES, VISIT W W W.RITROVO.COM/BLOG/ S AVOR Y A L MOND TOPPI NG new from Summer Fancy Food Show Booth 4021 Summer Fancy Food Show Booth 177 producer profile I n retrospect, launching a company with wine-based pasta sauces was an ambitious endeavor, muses Jonathan Milo Leal, owner and founder of Athens, Ohio–based Milo's Whole World Gourmet/Vino de Milo. Buyers told him over and over that the pasta sauce category was too crowded for anything new. "If I could go back and start over," says Leal, "I probably would have chosen a different category to get my feet wet." But, fast- forward 15 years, and Leal has beaten the odds. A Worldly Upbringing A child of missionary parents, Leal spent his early years in a remote village of Nepal. From there, his family moved on to Mexico to con- tinue their work. "I've grown up in a family that is multicultural—my great grandparents were Mexican immigrants—and I was constantly exposed to lots of interesting foods. I think that plays a big part in who I am today and the chances I'm willing to take," Leal says. Though exposure to a multitude of cuisines came at an early age, a culinary career wasn't his first dream. "I was sure I was going to grow up to be an inventor or a writer," he says, adding that he wrote his first 80-page mystery novel at the age of 11. After college, Leal took his love of writing to the suburbs of Oklahoma City and became a small-town reporter for several years. He then decided to go back to school, get a couple of degrees in French, and try his hand at teaching. It wasn't a good fit. "When I realized teaching high-school kids was not for me, I began looking around for what to do with my life," he says. His thoughts kept coming back to food. After responding to an ad for a personal chef, Leal began cook- ing for a few clients and then went on to cater small events. "My foray into catering was the impetus to creating Milo's," he says. Creating an Original According to Leal, the development of his company came very organ- ically, but not without some bumps along the way. "I was catering an event that called for pasta sauce, which I was creating from scratch in the kitchen at ACEnet, a food business incubator in Athens, Ohio," he recalls. As people raved about his sauces in particular, "I decided to take the plunge into actually bottling them." Leal is constantly working with his customers to make sure what is being developed has demand behind it. 76 ❘ SPECIALTY FOOD MAGAZINE specialtyfood.com ProducerProfiile_Milo.indd 76 6/4/14 8:42 AM