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Purely American
In the mid-eighties Ray Leard opened a small healthy deli in Norfolk, Virginia. To attract business, he began serving a delicious New Orleans style soup he called French Market '18 bean' soup. Sales at the restaurant were barely breakeven during that first year. To survive, Ray decided to start packaging his version of this popular New Orleans soup in a mix format to the many tourists who came to his counter. The idea worked so well that, during the next two years, he introduced five more regional American bean and pasta based mixes.
At that time there were several other companies offering the same kind of products. Ray decided to improve upon what he saw in the marketplace by creating bean and pasta mixes that celebrated famous American themes. He accomplished this by including a short history on each product that he researched and wrote along with a related pen and ink sketch. Tourists who bought the mixes while visiting his restaurant began calling to request more by mail.
In 1987 Ray sold the restaurant to devote all his energies to building his new business - Purely American Foods. He and his family spent all of 1988 blending, packing and shipping what quickly became a series of fifteen handcrafted mixes out of his living room. The business really blossomed in the fall of that year and he was able to afford to move to a real warehouse in early 1989.
During the next ten years, sales grew twelve times and Ray introduced 70 more bean, pasta, and grain based mixes. Purely American mixes were being sold in over 3,000 specialty food stores nationwide. In 1999, Purely American Foods acquired Peter's Beach Sauces and introduced a line of delicious gourmet Virginia peanuts.
By now Purely American badly needed a much larger space and, in the fall of 2000, moved into their current location. Current plans are to expand again in 2002 as the company proceeds with the introduction of several other new ideas.
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