26 - An empire built on peanuts

Vincenzo (Jimmy) Pulla took a handful of nuts and created an international business

Can an empire be built starting from a handful of peanuts, roasted on a stove and sold to neighbourhood stores? Yes it can, and Vincenzo (Jimmy) Pulla is living proof of that.
Or rather not, because he looks much more like a grandfather spending Sundays at the park with his grandchildren than a gritty businessman. He's also very reserved and modest: "I worked hard," he says, "and now I'm collecting the fruits. But everybody else would, if they had done what I did."
Vincenzo (Jimmy) Pulla's "fruits" are facilities and stores all over the Toronto area and in Montreal, with seven companies controlled by Johnvince Foods, the flagship, producing and marketing under their own brand names or for big supermarket chains, hotels and restaurants, including tons of nuts, sweets, legumes, flour and even paper products (tablecloths, napkins, toilet paper, etc.). The group employs about 1,500 people, and the processing centre alone, at 555 Steeprock Drive in Toronto, covers 350,000 square feet.
He knows these figures by heart, but lets Vince Cimadamore explain them. Cimadamore is the store manager of the big supermarket annexed to the processing centre, and Pulla's right-hand man. "Ours," says Cimadamore, "is a big family. There are Jimmy's children, Joe, who's our company's VP and Rita who manages administration, and there are the closest managers, such as me, who he treats more like children of his. I don't say this to flatter him, he really is like a father to me. He trusted me, and I try and live up to his trust every day. Maybe this is the secret of our success."
Success that came with home-roasted peanuts. Vincenzo (Jimmy) Pulla smiles: "Precisely," he says. And he tells his story, that's no different from those of many other immigrants who left Italy looking for jobs, but adds an apparently important point: he sold roasted peanuts because nobody wanted raw ones.
"I arrived here," says Vincenzo (Jimmy) Pulla, "on May 2, 1958. I was 27, and I had already married Irma. It was nine days by ship to Halifax, then two days by train to Toronto. In my hometown, Limosano, in the province of Campobasso, I was a peddler. I had a shed that I loaded onto a pick-up. I toured the villages, stopping in the central squares assembling the shed and selling baccalà (Mediterranean codfish, dried and salted). But baccalà didn't make me enough money to live on. So I decided to come to Canada. Things turned out well, and that's all."
Excuse me, but that's far from all...
"You want to hear the story of the peanuts. I'll tell you, but it's nothing exceptional. Soon after my arrival, my brother-in-law, who was already here, found me a job in a construction company. I stayed with them for one week, then I went to work at the Ontario Food Terminal, where I roasted corncobs. There I understood that people, contrary to common belief, preferred to buy loose nuts, maybe because they thought them to be fresher than packed ones. But in order to sell some kinds of nuts, you have to roast them first. That's what I did: I bought raw nuts and, together with my wife Irma, I roasted them on the kitchen stove, and later on in a small oven I installed in my garage. I sold roasted peanuts and hazelnuts to stores, which in turn sold them loose. When things started to go well, I rented a store at the Stoufville Stockyard where for years I sold my goods wholesale, to other stores, and retail, and finally to customers."
In short, you were selling nuts that were still crunchy because they were freshly roasted.
"So they say. What's more, people say that the habit of buying nuts loose had been lost for the previous 40 years, i.e. since hazelnuts, peanuts and popcorn had first been sold in the U.S. packed in brightly coloured boxes and bags. They say I revived an ancient habit, because nuts had always been eaten, and they had always been sold loose. Maybe that's true, but I only thought about my work and had no time, then, for these considerations."
And then, of course, loose nuts cost less than packed nuts, because packing them has its cost.
"That's also true. So, when I saw that it worked, I moved on."
What do you mean?
"I mean that first I opened my store-cum-laboratory in Chestwood. Four thousand square feet, and it looked huge to me. I only sold wholesale there. Then, in 1979, I came here at Steeprock Drive: in this big building I took some 12,000 square feet; and when one of the adjacent stores became empty, I took it as well, and now the whole building is mine. Then, at last, in 1982 my son Joe finished school and was able to lend me a hand."
If you felt the need to expand, the business was going well.
"Yes, but that was the time to make a difficult decision. I had an alternative in front of me: remaining at the size I had reached, or expanding even more. I chose the latter, not just because I was helped by Joe and then by Rita and her husband, but also because I could rely upon young managers, ready to assist me in difficult decision-making, such as Vince Cimadamore. And then, also because the market allowed expansion. Over almost 20 years we reached our present size, and we expanded throughout Canada and to Florida as well. We equipped our companies with fast and sophisticated machinery, which allow us to process great quantities of goods. If you'll come with me, I'll show you around the place."
Until now, the conversation had taken place in the restaurant of the big supermarket, where Pulla and Cimadamore had just had their breakfast. Behind the restaurant, there are large offices and meeting-halls, but Vincenzo (Jimmy) Pulla likes to meet his oldest and most affectionate customers here: "In front of a cup of espresso we all reason better," he says. And he immediately proceeds to offer an espresso to the interviewer and the photographer. Maybe it is this familiar atmosphere that induces him to call his favourite corner his "breakfast club".
An immense area annexed to the offices represents a veritable Wonderland: 350,000 square feet of warehouses and laboratories where tons of hazelnuts, peanuts, almonds, cashews, Pecan nuts, coming from all over the world, are shelled, roasted and covered with chocolate or honey. More: huge vats (almost swimming pools, judging from their size) candied fruit, dried fruit, multicoloured sweets, everything rigorously aseptic, with everybody wearing white caps.
Mr. Pulla, I feel like a nun with this cap.
He laughs: "Then all of us are nuns. Can you see those Indian workers over there? They wear caps even for their beards. These are the rules, and we respect them. On the other hand, we work with food, and messing around just doesn't do."
There are monster-machines, big as a ship (or a newspaper's rotary press), able to eat huge bags of peanuts and return them roasted just right, hot and crunchy, ready to be sold. And there are other sophisticated machines that pack them in cans or coloured boxes.
"I'll only show you this part of the place, which is where we process nuts," Mr. Pulla tells us, "because those are just warehouses, and we would have to walk quite a bit in order to visit them." He waves his hand at vast spaces, very high ceilinged, full of crates and bags to be processed.
"The young told me which machines I had to buy to expand our production capacity," he adds, "much like they told me when we had to buy other companies and consolidate our group. I trusted them, and the trust was well-deserved."
How important was being Italian in terms of the business you created?
"Well, some say we Italians never despair. I never despaired: does that answer your question?"
Yes, it does, and for my next question: since your name is Vincenzo, how come you're called Jimmy?
"You should blame the Chinese owner of the store where I worked when I first arrived at the Ontario Food Terminal. He was unable to pronounce my first name. One day he said: 'From now on, I'll call you Jimmy: it's easier for me, and then, if you're good you'll do well, if not you'll starve, either as Vincenzo or as Jimmy.' I realized he was right. Thus I became Jimmy. But of course down deep, I am still Pulla Vincenzo from Limosano, from the province of Campobasso." u

(translated by Emanuele Oriano)

Publication Date: 2002-12-22
Story Location: http://tandemnews.com/viewstory.php?storyid=2201