New Yorkers' food products go a long way
Brownies, buns, rye bread, bass; local companies treat the nation
laurie joan aron
New York City's nearly 550 food manufacturing companies are all over the lot. They range from Brooklyn-based makers of ethnic food selling locally, to fresh fish purveyors on Fulton Street hoping to net their fortune on the Internet. While they come from and cater to a huge variety of places with their wildly disparate menus, they also hold many things in common.
All have managed to capitalize on some aspect of the city, from its appetite for ethnic foods to its status as the capital of buzz. The more successful among them also share an ability to sell in markets ever more distant from midtown.
Fat Witch Bakery Inc.
Fat Witch Bakery is the 8-year-old love child of former equity option trader Patricia Helding, who had always dreamed of running her own business, preferably a food business.
The problem, she admits, is that "I can only bake one thing." That one thing is brownies. Today, her sales are approaching $1 million, and she has already managed to achieve national reach.
In fact, although Ms. Helding operates a small retail shop in the Chelsea Market, most of her business is mail-order, 60% of it corporate. All the brownies are baked in the Chelsea Market space, recently expanded to 2,000 square feet from 1,200.
Why supply a national corporate clientele from a Manhattan base? "I ask myself that once a month," concedes Ms. Helding. "It's difficult and expensive to operate here."
Yet the answer always turns out to be location. "There's an enormous amount of activity in New York, and we get attention that we just wouldn't get elsewhere," she says. "The word of mouth is priceless."
Fay Ming Wah Food Corp.
Fay Ming Wah Food was started 36 years ago by three Chinese immigrant brothers to supply steamed buns, a traditional breakfast and snack food, to the local Chinese community. Now, says President John Hung, his packaged frozen steamed buns, which are made in Long Island City, Queens, travel as far as Houston, Chicago and Miami.
Asian buyers still account for 80% of the company's nearly $5 million in annual revenues, but that may soon change. The firm has developed a line of dim sum, which it is successfully marketing to a broad range of New York restaurants and caterers.
The potential is enormous for a frozen version to go national. "You don't need to educate people about dim sum any more," says Mr. Hung.
Fulton Street Lobster & Seafood Co.
The Internet was the pond that Stratis Morfogen was waiting to fish in. Mr. Morfogen, chief executive of Fulton Street Lobster & Seafood Co., otherwise known as FultonStreet.com, launched his fish-e-tailing company on the Web in February 1998.
At that point, he already had a core customer base in landlocked places like Plano, Texas; a packing facility in Long Island City, Queens; and a lot of dry ice.
The move on-line paid off almost immediately for FultonStreet.com, which sells ready-to-eat seafood suppers, gourmet grocery items and professional kitchenware. To date, it has rung up $2 million in sales.
Oddly enough, having started national, Mr. Morfogen is now breaking in to the local market. A recent alliance with UrbanFetch.com, a local delivery service, enables Manhattanites to have their seafood dinner within an hour. Mr. Morfogen aims to follow UrbanFetch.com in its quest to supply other major bike-accessible cities.
"We've got the biggest and best fish market in the world," says Mr. Morfogen. "I wouldn't be anywhere else."
I. Beigel Baking Co.
I. Beigel Baking was reborn in Brooklyn in 1947, the creation of three Holocaust survivors who had been part of the long-established Beigel (pronounced BUY-gul) family business in Cracow, Poland. Five years ago, when the next generation took over, the then-$900,000 business -- a supplier to local shops and commission bakers -- was reborn yet again.
Fishel Stiel, vice president and co-owner, says that the company now brings in $3 million annually, with 60% of its business coming from customers outside the five boroughs of New York City.
The turning point was the new management's decision to invest heavily not just in more ovens, but also in packaging machines that could pave the way for growth in markets far from the city.
Today, while I. Beigel's fresh rye bread can still be found in West Side Market's two Manhattan stores and even in numerous Price Club stores in the metro area, its packaged cinnamon twists and other goods go to a national clientele.
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