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://www.e-digitaleditions.com/i/654717
Kuo had studied food science as an undergraduate at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. "I know why a certain additive is used," he says, "as a preservative or for f lavor or because it's cheaper, but it's pretty disappointing when organic brands do it. I thought, 'Well, shoot, I could make my own cheese puffs.'" At the time, Kuo was 32 and without a job, but by then he had a fair amount of experience working in the food business. The Road to Becoming a Snack Maker After college, Kuo stayed on at the University of Illinois for an MBA, graduating in 2004. He wasn't sure of his next move and felt direc- tionless. On a hunch, he attended a trade show in Atlanta. That's where he discovered the artisan coffee movement. "Wow, people are super-passionate about coffee," he recalls thinking. "At first, I felt passionate about that passion, and then I became passionate about coffee, too." In college, specialty coffee had never been a pursuit of his, nor had it hit Urbana-Champaign. At the time, the only Starbucks in town shared space with a bookstore. But at the trade show, Kuo went into networking mode and convinced a Seattle coffee roaster, Caffe Vita, to take him on as an intern. He relocated to Seattle and worked for free for three months, then got hired to do everything from data sales analysis and creating a coffee menu to moving gar- bage from one dumpster to another dumpster, he says. After a couple of years, Kuo moved on to learn about espresso equipment manufacturing, first at Franke Coffee Systems and then at La Marzocco, where he became the director of marketing. He drank all the coffee he wanted for free but eventually got burnt out on both caffeine and the industry. "You get to a point where you can't grow anymore careerwise," he says. So, he left the coffee business and switched to drinking kombucha. A girlfriend—now an ex—was the impetus to move to Portland four years ago. He wasn't sure what he was going to do there and lined up some job interviews. "I don't really like being interviewed," he says. "And I didn't want a real job, so one way to not go on inter- views or have a real job is to start something of your own." But what? The night that Kuo read the ingredient label on a package of cheese puffs, an idea began to take shape. "Well, I guess I can make them," he thought. "I guess I can do a business. I don't have a job, so why not?" Creating a Cheese Puff with Real Ingredients Kuo had the vague notion that making cheese puffs was not so differ- ent from making popcorn. "In food science, they don't teach you how to make cheese puffs," he says. "No one even knows what's in them. Heck, it's a trade secret." Since Kuo wasn't a big cook, baker, or foodie, he approached the problem scientifically. He wanted to make organic, chemical- free cheese puffs and knew he needed a fail-safe recipe and special equipment. A show on the Discovery Channel about the origins of everyday objects, How It's Made, provided him with the basics about cheese extrusion systems. Not having much money, Kuo bought a small extruder and modified it. In designing his own system, he methodically tackled problem solving and fine-tuning while working from a borrowed space in a commercial kitchen. He had no partners and, since he was new to the area and didn't know many people, he also had few distractions. "I was just trying to do something and my silly idea grew into a bigger silly idea," he recalls. "I rolled with it, getting cheesier and cheesier like a giant cheese ball." He sourced non-GMO, locally based ingredients, such as Bob's Red Mill corn. Hormone-free cheese came from Oregon, Washington, and Idaho. He figured out how to successfully avoid using common cheese puff additives like annatto, a coloring agent, and maltodextrin, a highly processed starch that's used as a thick- ener. No whey or buttermilk powder either, which are cheaper than cheese powder. And certainly no 'natural f lavors.' "Using natural f lavors is cheating," he says. "You see it everywhere, and it's a huge umbrella term for a lot of unnatural things. My manifesto is to never use any of those ingredients, including preservatives." producer profile JACK KUO Age: 35 Years in specialty food: 2 Favorite food: Eggs Least favorite food: Broccoli Last thing I ate and loved: Hot chocolate made with good chocolate and half-and-half If I weren't in the food business I'd be: A professional climber One piece of advice I'd give to a new food business: Be cheesy. I'm cheesy and corny and it's seemed to work well for me. 90 ❘ SPECIALTY FOOD MAGAZINE specialtyfood.com