Pastry chef John Muscarello found his niche with low-carb
Italian food. As the owner of Jean Marie Patisserie in Garden City,
New York--a business Muscarello no longer owns--he concocted a
zero-carb wrap for his diabetic mother. Stuffing it with grilled
vegetables or chicken salad and offering it alongside his sweets,
he saw it ring up more sales than his pastries. Being Italian,
Muscarello, 42, decided to try making low-carb versions of
favorites such as ravioli, manicotti and stromboli using the wrap.
He boasts, "People don't even realize it's not
pasta."
Struggling with weight loss himself, Muscarello ate his
creations for six weeks, exercised and ended up losing 33 pounds.
He soon added a Philly steak wrap, chicken parmigiana and several
other items and decided to go all low-carb, launching the West
Babylon, New York-based Carbs a Weigh--a company providing low-carb
meals, snacks, desserts and appetizers--in October 2003. Selling
his frozen meals through wholesale, retail, mail order and his Web
site, Muscarello has had pizza parlors order pasta items from him,
and QVC featured his line in March. Sales for 2004 are projected at
more than $1.5 million, and Muscarello is rolling out Carbs a Weigh
parties, where guests can sample and purchase food from the host.
Muscarello is thrilled, but stresses his mission: "I just
wanted to give people an opportunity to really enjoy food.
That's why I say, 'Losing weight has never tasted this
good!'"
While the environment is a prosperous one, entrepreneurs who
still want to open retail stores or enter other quickly saturating
areas may want to consider becoming franchisees. "If
you're set on being an independent, you're going to face a
lot of competition from your neighborhood supermarket," warns
Rotbart.
Content Continues Below
One such franchise is Castus Low Carb Superstores, based in the San
Francisco Bay area. These low-carb retail stores already have 48
franchisees on board, and founders Paul Chalupsky and Rick Schott
plan to span the United States and Canada, and are working on
entering Australia and the United Kingdom. With plans to open 200
locations this year, Chalupsky, 47, and Schott, 50, realize the
low-carb retail store wars have already begun. "If you
don't have additional players, it's not a game. I wish them
well," Schott says good-naturedly. While he welcomes the
competition, Schott worries about those who are entering the
industry just for the money.
Schott travels and offers low-carb workshops to help inform and
educate others on the low-carb lifestyle. Both founders are serious
low-carbers and require all their employees to follow a low-carb
lifestyle. With projected 2004 sales at $10 million, their retail
model is "We don't sell low-carb products; [we sell] our
customer doing well on a low-carb lifestyle."
Like the Internet boom, the low-carb craze has created a feeding
frenzy among businesses that are ready to serve the needs of the
mushrooming low-carb community. "A lot of people are going to
have success if they have some originality. It's easier to
succeed [now because of its popularity], but the time to get it
right will be truncated," says Rotbart. With everyone racing
to be the biggest, best and especially the first, he predicts that
many will enter the marketplace in 2004, but only a few will
survive. Watch out, though--Rotbart predicts that a second wave of
entrepreneurs will enter the market in the following two years,
after watching and learning from the current successes.
Valen acknowledges the risks entrepreneurs must take, but he
still stresses the advantage they have over the corporate powers in
this arena: "Entrepreneurs can get products done and on the
market in about half the time."
Page
1 |
2 |
3 | 4