Companiesfor Food + Drink

Charlie Hall’s first job after getting a degree in finance from Miami University, was selling copiers in Chicago. His boss told him he had to make 50 cold calls a day to keep his job. After six months, Hall got fired. Two days after he got fired, Spring Valley, a bottle watered distribution company that had been one of his cold calls, offered him a job.

Coffee Emporium has been open since 1973, but current owners Tony Tausch and Eileen Schwab purchased the Hyde Park-based business in 1996. Since then, Tausch has expanded the company and now provides coffee for dozens of cafes around the area, as well as six of his own.
 

At first, Jean-Francois Flechet, the city's ambitious waffle entrepreneur, served only waffles in a shared space in Findlay Market. Now, the Taste of Belgium franchise serves crepes, brownies, calzones and espresso drinks in spaces near and far, including a new full-service bistro on Vine Street slated to open before the end of the year.

Two sisters have set out to create the perfect no-cream ice cream. They experimented with different bases and came out with some textures that were barely passable. But they kept at it, and with a dedication to using only natural ingredients and lots of time and effort, eventually, Phro*ZEN was born.

Cincinnati-born Copper Mountain Beverages developed and sells Hot2Go, a packaged latte that has real milk, is ready to heat and drink and tastes as good as more expensive coffee beverages.

Wornick is a leading supplier of convenience foods and military rations to restaurant chains, consumer-product companies, and the U.S. government. The Blue Ash company plans to invest $10 million to establish a pilot project to help bring a cutting edge technology to sterilize food to a wider market this year.

GALERIE wholesale candies in Hebron is the culmination of decades of innovative candy sales by founder and President Richard Ross. The store's 270,000-square-foot corporate headquarters is in Northern Kentucky, not far from the Cincinnati/Northern Kentucky International Airport. The GALERIE headquarters houses a production area, design department, distribution and outlet store open to the public. The company also produces licensed products for Hershey's, Peanuts and Star Wars.