Two friends set out to save an R.I. original

This is the first in a series of 12 PBN articles focusing on the backgrounds, challenges and successes of some of the area’s most influential and interesting business women.
When Kim Silva and Amanda Simoneau purchased Porino’s Gourmet Foods three months ago, they had more than a fair amount of work to do.
The company had been in receivership for six weeks. Its former owner’s profits had been crushed by hefty overhead, which included the $12,000 per month rent for the company’s 75,000-square-foot production and warehouse facility in Central Falls, Simoneau said.
The previous owner had been packaging products for other companies in addition to producing Porino’s eight signature pasta sauces, plus a line of peppers, olives, pastas, oils, vinegar and salad dressings.
Not all of the products were doing well in the market, however, and orders for Porino’s most popular products weren’t being filled fast enough.
The results were a failing business and a facility filled with inventory, packaging and machinery that had to be removed, since the landlord wanted the business to vacate.
“We physically had to clean [the facility] out,” Simoneau said, adding that the work took two weeks. But it also got them out from under a lease they couldn’t afford.
The new owners then bartered the machinery – some pieces worth $15,000 to $30,000 – for credit at a local food manufacturer. In exchange, they got several batches of their product made at no cost. Then, they contracted out the balance of the production.
Neither of the women had ever imagined she would end up in the food business.
Silva had been a dental assistant for 13 years before she had her second son, who is 21 months old.
Simoneau had graduated with a degree in marketing and communications before working in a lawyer’s office, and then with her husband, Norman, a self-employed computer programmer. She had taken a job as a preschool teacher, when her daughters were younger, but the hours weren’t conducive to spending time with her children. So when their longtime friends – Silva and her husband, Michael – told the Simoneaus about Porino’s being for sale, she was ready for something different.
Running the company allows her to use the training she received in college, because most of what the company requires at this stage is marketing and keeping track of orders.
“This is the best job for a mom,” Simoneau said. “The hours are flexible. You can bring the work home.” Or they can bring their children to work, she said. And they never miss a doctor’s appointment or sports game.
The food business is less of a new venture for Silva than for Simoneau. Two years ago, the Silvas bought Pawtucket-based Zach Specialty Foods, previously Nicole Foods. And Michael Silva had known the Porino’s brand for many years before that.
The loyalty of the customers was a huge factor in their decision to buy, Simoneau said, especially since the two families did not get a commercial loan – instead, they purchased the company with equity in their homes and other available.
The Porino’s brand is so popular in the New England region that, even though the previous owner hadn’t been filling orders on time, Silva said it hasn’t been difficult getting Porino’s products back on the shelves in specialty stores, and at Stop & Shop and Shaw’s Supermarkets.
“They are just happy to have it back,” Silva said.
Porino’s is also getting a fair amount of business from Internet orders; New England transplants who are living in other parts of the country order cases of the sauce online.
When they took over the company, the Silvas and Simoneaus found more than 200 messages that had been left while the company was in receivership. Most were frantic. People were saying things like, “It’s my favorite sauce, I can’t live without it,” Silva recalled.
The secret is in how the sauce is made. The flavor comes from a salt-pork stock that is made the day before the sauce, Simoneau said. “That’s a lot of time and nurturing in a process.”
Silva added: “It tastes homemade. It doesn’t taste like a jar sauce.”
Eventually, in a few years, Silva hopes they can purchase or lease space to handle production themselves again, because it allows for more control, she said.
“Our goal is to make it ourselves as soon as possible,” Simoneau agreed. Then, “we can produce as much as we want, whenever we want.”
Plus, the women are hoping to market the company’s products nationally. If distributors carry the brand, Porino’s will need mass-production capabilities in a facility of its own. And once consumers in other regions taste the sauce, Simoneau said, it will be easy to market the product nationwide, because the flavor sells itself.
“Once they taste it, they love it,” she said, adding that her own 5-year-old and 7-year-old daughters won’t eat any other sauce. Silva said the same is true of her 6-year-old son.
But setting up a production facility would require at least a $500,000 investment, not including the cost of real estate, Simoneau said, and the two women would like to see the company make some good profits before they take on that project.
So for now, they’re concentrating on strengthening the business. They started by changing the name of the company to Porino’s Fine Foods Inc., and they eliminated the products that weren’t doing well – the pastas, oils, olives, vinegar and salad dressings. (They might make salad dressings again, Silva said, if they can develop better recipes.)
Their husbands are both officers of the company, and they have another big help: Porino’s original cook, who knows how the recipes for all the sauces.
“Since the beginning, [hiring the original cook] was important to us,” Simoneau said. “If you don’t keep the sauce the same, you don’t have a product.” •
Porino’s Fine Foods Inc., based in Pawtucket, has an online store at porinos.stores.yahoo.net.