Wolfie's Nuts By Shelly Coonrod Nov 16, 2004, 06:51

On West Main Cross, where the bar Brandy's is now located, was the home of Maggie Phillips. On the first floor of her home, Mrs. Phillips operated a small store where she sold fresh roasted nuts, which she made by using a secrete recipe. The little boys of Findlay would bring old pop bottles to the store and trade them for a small bag of nuts. Such are the memories of Bill Wolf, and he used those memories to create Wolfies Nuts, which has grown to three locations.
 Mrs. Phillip's store was torn down in the 1970s. In 1984, Mr. Wolf made a bid for the store located just behind the old store, but it wasn't accepted. He tried again in 1988, and yet again in 1992. Having finally acquired the desired store, Wolf and his younger brother began to clean the building. They began to get the store ready, cleaning every inch and learning how to make roasted nuts. In one of the cabinets, Wolf's brother found a paper that contained Mrs. Phillips' original recipe for her roasted nuts in one of the cracks. The recipe called for slower roast time and lower temperatures. It was the beginning of a popular Findlay brand. In February of 1996, Wolf bought the popular Totem Nuts and the company has been growing ever since.
 Just how popular are Wolfies roasted nuts? The company distributed the product all around Findlay, including their own stores and Great Scots grocery stores. They also sell across the country, from Georgia to California, and most recently they began selling on the international market to countries such as Canada, Germany and Singapore. Their popularity has even gone as far as TV. In 2001 they were featured on the Food Network as a highlight of American specialty foods.
 Wolfies popularity can be attributed to the taste. "The key to our product is we keep it fresh," said Wolf. That means the best nuts are used, and if the doctor of nutology finds the nut inferior he won't even let a squirrel eat it. They are slow roasted 25 pounds at a time. The spices that are used for flavoring are put on the individual nuts by hand, which is tricky. Too much or too little flavoring will ruin the finale product. The nuts are carefully packaged in airtight containers, which have evolved over the years from a tin can to sealed plastic bags.
 Today there are four locations of Wolfies Nuts in Findlay - 130 Olive Street, 546 Sixth Street, 340 Glessner Ave., and 8013 County Road 140. There, you can purchase their classic crunchy nuts - which includes cashew, macadamia, peanuts and almonds - specialty nuts, or specialty mixes. You can also purchase chips, salsa, sauces and gift baskets. If you would like, you can also buy the products online at http://www.wolfiesnuts.com.

His business is going ... nuts!
By MIKE SOBCZYK
STAFF WRITER

This is the time of year that Bill Wolf Jr.'s business goes nuts -- literally.

"This year, we'll probably cook between 25 tons to 30 tons of peanuts between now (mid-November) and Christmas," Wolf said. "We'll average about 43 percent of our total nut business during the holiday season."

The product of his business, Wolfies Slow-Roasted Nuts, is enjoyed by many, including the grandson of Dr. Norman Vincent Peale and patrons of the Hilton New York in Manhattan.

While Wolfies nuts have gained some national recognition, their beginnings started humbly enough at Phillips Carryout on Glessner Avenue.

"I bought the carryout in 1992," Wolf said, and not necessarily because of the peanut business. For Wolf, it was more for sentimental reasons.

"I used to live on Putnam Street," Wolf said. "I grew up down there. We used to redeem pop bottles and get a small bag of warm red skins or cashews." In those days, Maggie Phillips operated the store.

Wolf said he made his first offer on the Phillips carryout business in 1984. However, it wasn't until 1992 that he was able to close the deal.

For Wolf, one important discovery made at the store was a notebook. He said, "We found a notebook with some information about cooking peanuts. I thought I'd better hang onto it."

And it's a good thing he did, because the information in that book led to restoring the luster in peanut sales at the store.

After he bought the carryout, "I cooked (peanuts) every day," Wolf said. "I passed them out to everyone to try." However, try as he might he couldn't get the peanuts to taste the way he wanted them to.

It turned out the cooking time was too fast. "I remembered that notebook, followed its recipe, and decided to turn down the temperature of the oil."

Suddenly, the flavor returned and thus was born "Wolfies Slow-Roasted Nuts."

Today, 65 different items are made at the company's Olive Street plant (formerly Totem Nuts) which Wolf acquired a few years ago.

That acquisition came about when Wolf was contacted by Riad Yammine and Dick McCord about buying the business. "They were going to close it down," Wolf said.

While Wolf wasn't sure he actually wanted the Totem Nuts business, he thought it might be worth it just for its machinery -- machinery that he still uses every day. Eventually, the business deal was closed on Feb. 20, 1996.

"We started out then as Wolfies Snack Group," Wolf said. "I was making pork rinds, potato chips, popcorn, nuts." However, after a while, it became clearer to Wolf that he needed to return to his core business -- nuts.

Of the approaching holiday season, Wolf said, "Our corporate gift giving has already started." He added that heavy retail sales kick in during the last 10 days before Christmas.

Other popular holidays for the business are Fathers' Day, Valentine's Day and Easter.

Crunchy original peanuts, whole cashews, extra large red skins, sweet and salty peanuts, and Hilton special blend are among the more popular varieties of nuts sold by WMW Marketing Systems, the parent company of the Olive Street plant and the various Wolfies stores.

Earlier this year, Steve Lishawa, a longtime acquaintance of Wolf's, became vice president of the business which overall employs about 20 people.

Excluding his sales to the Hilton New York, Wolf noted that about 40 percent of the overall nut business is wholesale, and the balance retail.

Wolf's connection with the Hilton New York began in the summer of 1999 when Findlay resident Ivan Cole stopped at the Olive Street store and mentioned to Wolf that his son, Doug, is the food service director at the hotel. So Wolf decided to send the hotel some samples of his product. What followed was a request for more samples.

Eventually, an order came in for a couple different varieties of nuts. "They wanted what we call our Crunchy Original Peanuts and our Spicy Mac's Nuts," Wolf said. Through some further conversations, Wolf learned the hotel was then mixing the nuts, a job Wolf said he could do for them.

"I started mixing different ingredients so every handful is a different taste," Wolf said.

The Hilton New York now buys about 1,500 pounds of nuts from Wolf per week.

"I've been contacted by Norman Vincent Peale's grandson," Wolf said. He explained that the grandson was staying one time at the Hilton, sampled some of the nuts, and contacted Wolf to tell him he enjoyed the product. Dr. Norman Vincent Peale, a noted New York City clergyman and author of "The Power of Positive Thinking," served as a newspaper reporter in Findlay from 1919-1920.

Besides Wolf's store outlets, which include the recently acquired South Side Wolfies on Sixth Street, Wolf also has a Web site through which orders can be made.

"I wanted an e-commerce site," Wolf said. "I wanted our customers to be able to order from the site." After 10 months of work, the Web site -- wolfiesnuts.com -- was launched on Oct. 18, 1999. "We'll average about 50 hits a day through Christmas," Wolf said.

While Wolf's nut business is growing, he's very particular about the cooking method used and the quantity made at any one time. Whether it's for the bag, can, glass jar or resealable tubs, no more than 25 pounds are made per batch.

"I want to keep it fresh when it hits your hands," Wolf said

Article ID: 9912130260
Published on December 13, 1999 Blade, The (Toledo, OH)

ROASTED NUTS BY WOLFIES A WINNER OLD RECIPE LEADS TO INCREASED SALES

Bill Wolf, Jr., didn't just buy a carry-out on Findlay's west side in 1992. He bought memories.
When Mr. Wolf was a boy, he ran to the store, then operated by Maggie Phillips, and traded a returnable pop bottle for a handful of warm red skins or cashews.

The store, in an old two-story house with a gasoline pump and a tiny deli, was "a child's dream, with creaky wooden floors, comic books, penny candy, and an aroma of fresh roasted nuts," he wrote in a history of the store.

The store had stopped roasting nuts daily when he bought it. But he found an old recipe for the nuts, gave out samples, packaged them in a variety of containers, and sales increased from $400,000 in 1992 to what he predicts will be $1.3 million this year.

Cigarettes and alcohol are the largest sellers at the 2,500-square foot convenience store, Wolfies Roasted Nuts & Deli on Glessner Avenue. But nuts are the third biggest item for WMW Marketing Systems, Inc., parent company of the store and a wholesale plant on Olive Street, Wolfies Roasted Nut Co. Ltd.

Mr. Wolf bought the plant in 1996, which had been operated by two brothers who had been making crunchy coated nuts there since the 1960s. The brothers, the story goes, had operated a chick hatchery in Findlay and were considering expanding in Mexico when they tasted the crunchy nuts. They abandoned the chick hatchery idea and instead decided to coat nuts.

Peanuts, cashews, almonds, and macadamia nuts are hand coated with flour and syrup, never in lots of more than 25 pounds at a time. They're placed in large, cast-iron ovens and constantly rolled over an open flame until golden brown before they're placed into a rotating tumbler and seasoned. They dry and cool for several hours.

Now Mr. Wolf roasts nuts in oil at the store and the plant - as Mrs. Phillips had done - and crunchy-coats them in the plant as the brothers did.

His largest customer is North Coast Snack Ltd., headquartered near Mount Blanchard, with warehouses in Norwalk and Findlay. Wolfies is fresher and something different compared to most bagged snack mixes, said distributor Doug Harrold.

Next biggest is the 2,040-room Hilton Hotel in Manhattan, which buys 720 pounds every eight to 10 days to put out on its bar for guests.

Hotel leaders tasted three or four brands before choosing Wolfies, which the food and beverage director had liked on a trip. He took the empty bag back to the hotel and said, "Find these," said Kevin Doyle, a purchasing assistant.

Mr. Wolf produces nuts with private labels for the Beer Barrel Saloon and Frosty's Bar on Put-in-Bay and sells nuts in Great Scot Supermarkets in Findlay.

"They're my best selling nut - there's no doubt," said Mark Andrus, produce manager at Great Scot. "I think they would do well anywhere, if you want to know the truth, because they're a good fresh peanut."

Since putting a page on the Internet about a month ago, Mr. Wolf said, he's averaged two orders a day. Products available on the Web range from 16 ounces of Wolfies Hot Cajun Reds in a resealable tub for $3 to an "executive" basket with five pounds of nuts and a half pound of candy for $30.

Thirty per cent of all of Wolfies nut sales occur around the holidays, he said.

Mr. Wolf, who worked for Seaway Food Town, Inc., for 18 years, said he talked with the local grocery chain about carrying the nuts but could not match the price the store wanted, using his more expensive resealable tub instead of a plastic bag.

Nuts make up about 7 per cent of snack food sales by pounds and 8 per cent by dollars, according to the Snack Food Association in Alexandria, Va.

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	Section: A Date: 11/01/2001 Page: 08   Network finds Wolfies Local business chosen for cable show feature Whether it be the Wall Street Journal featuring Marathon Oil Co. in a front page story or the major news networks covering a presidential visit, it's always fun to see Findlay in the national spotlight. Bill Wolf Jr. and Steve Lishawa, owners of Wolfies Roasted Nut Co., will once again bring the nation's attention to town when their business is featured on the Food Network's Food Finds show sometime next year. Food Finds, based on the book of the same name by Allison Engel and Margaret Engel, highlights specialty foods from across America. Past shows, for example, have featured the Standard Candy Co. of Nashville, Tenn., which makes Goo-Goo Clusters; Zapp's Potato Chips of New Orleans; and the Boudin Bakery of San Francisco, known for its sourdough bread. The half-hour shows are often clustered under a central theme, such as boardwalk food, food from Pennsylvania Dutch country, stadium food and food from religious orders. Wolfies Roasted Nut Co. will be featured on a segment highlighting camping food. Wolf said he was sitting in a staff meeting in June when he received a call from the cable network expressing interest in featuring his business. He was asked to send samples of his products, which were apparently well received as plans for the Wolfies feature were soon set in motion. Wolf was notified about a month ago that a taping date had been set. Last week, the Food Network sent a production crew to Findlay. Chris Barrett, an independent producer from Virginia, was met by a technical team from Chicago made up of cameraman Joe Klimovitz and sound technician Marty Powers. Although Barrett had never met Klimovitz and Powers before his arrival in Findlay, all the men are veterans of Food Network productions, traveling around the country from assignment to assignment. Barrett said his job when he arrives at each assignment is to meet the people, meet the neighbors and hear the story. Although oil-roasted nuts comprise 65 percent of Wolfies' business, Wolf chose to feature his crunchy nut line for the Food Finds segment because it is so unique. Crunchy nuts are dry roasted and then coated with a mixture of flour, spices and other ingredients. Nobody I'm aware of does a dry roasted coating process, Wolf said. He explained that the crunchy nuts come from an old recipe brought back in the late 1950s from Mexico. They were originally manufactured and marketed locally by Totem Nuts, a business Wolf bought in 1996. Wolf entered the nut business after purchasing the Phillips Carryout on Glessner Avenue in 1992. Today, his business includes four retail outlets. Wolfies also sells its products nationally and internationally through a Web site and at various mom and pop stores and gift shops in Ohio, Michigan, Indiana and Pennsylvania. The Food Network's production crew followed Wolf throughout the day, taping the sorting, roasting and packaging processes, including the process by which the nuts are vacuum sealed in cans and glass jars. The crew wrapped up their day in Findlay with a visit to Wolfies' newest retail store on County Road 140, Wolf said. After the visit to Findlay, Barret was off to State College, Pa., to produce a segment at the Penn State Creamery. Barrett said that once the Wolfies show is ready to air, probably sometime in the late winter or early spring of 2002, it will be shown four times as a new feature and then shown in reruns 10 more times throughout the year. Currently, new episodes of Food Finds air Mondays at 10 p.m. Barrett noted that companies featured on Food Finds usually need to prepare for a flood of orders, as the show generates a lot of interest. Wolf said he is still not sure how the Food Network heard about his product. He has some theories, however. A Hilton Hotel in New York City regularly orders nuts from Wolfies, and country music stars Faith Hill, Tim McGraw and Loretta Lynn have ordered off Wolfies' Web site. Wolfies nuts are also included in gift baskets assembled by a Toledo company, and Wolf said he believes a sample basket was sent to the Food Network at one time. More information about the Food Network can be accessed on the Internet at foodtv.com. Browsers will be directed to links for the Food Finds show.