On August 16, 2006, Joe Reardon, Mayor/CEO of the Unified Government of Wyandotte County/Kansas City, Kansas, declared the day as “Original Juan Specialty Foods, Inc. Day”
Original Juan Specialty Foods, Inc. was started in 1998. The seed for Original Juan was planted when friends Joe Polo and R.J. Samuels founded the Lotta Hotta Specialty Foods Chain in 1991.
Original Juan has one hundred forty eight different products, representing twelve brands; including barbecue sauce, pasta sauce, condiments, spices salsa, dips and dessert sauces.
Original Juan has received more than 200 national and international awards and honors including its addition to the 2006 List of Top 100 Inner City Companies in the nation, as presented by INC. magazine. They were selected from a pool of more than 4,500 nominations from sixty-five cities and thirty states.
This is the second year in a row the company has received this honor.
You may visit Original Juan Specialty Foods Outlet Store, located at 111 S.W. Blvd., Kansas City, Kansas. Store hours are M-F, 9-4:30 and Sat. 10-3:00. Or you may visit them on line at www.originaljuan.com .
Joe R. Polo, Sr, will be featured as a guest columnist in an upcoming edition of the K.C. Star’s Tuesday Business Section.
The official proclomation is available for download here (PDF)
2 responses to “August 16th – Original Juan Specialty Foods, Inc. Day”
Joe Polo is a shyster. 90% of his floor staff are illegal immigrants, he hires a couple of bi-linguals to bridge that gap.
His business practices are un-ethical and there’s not enough room or time to give you all the examples that I alone know about.
His floor manager (Don) is a pot-head that’s an accident waiting to happen.
Their product is inconsistent and is bottled by immigrants who wear no sanitary gloves.
Avoid OJSF at all costs. Polo is running out of odds.
The OJ sauce was delicious and had very low sodium. Spicin Foods bought the line and it is now loaded with salt and tastes NOTHING like the original. Very sad to lose such a great product.