"We wanted a way to tell people where we come from and how good the food is," said Gent Fumi, a co-owner of Epiri Foods in Southern Pines.
Fumi and his cousin, Dorjan "Harry" Arsi, formed Epiri Foods in October. They already have sales of about $2,000 a week.
Epiri soups and dips are sold in the three Weaver Street Markets in the Triangle and in four Whole Foods Markets, including the one in Winston-Salem.
The three soups are white-bean, tomato-basil and lemon-chicken. The three dips are hummus, tzatziki and Gent's Gourmet Grub, made of sour cream, walnuts, garlic and dill.
If the food sounds Greek or Italian, it's no coincidence.
Epiri Foods is named after the Epiri region of southern Albania, which borders northern Greece and is just a hop and a skip across the Adriatic Sea from Italy.
"It is not cut and dry what is Greek, what is Italian and what is Albanian," Fumi said. "It's a collision of cultures."
Albanian cuisine is more Mediterranean than Slavic. Olive oil and garlic show up in everything. Lamb is the dominant red meat. Albanians also eat a lot of chicken, fish, cheese and yogurt. A signature dish is tave elbasani, which is lamb mixed with yogurt and served over rice. Cold zucchini soup with yogurt and garlic is also popular. This is a soup that Epiri plans to sell this spring.
The mountainous region (called Epirus in Greece) was split between Greece and Albania in 1913 during the Balkan Wars, which also established the independent state of Albania.
Fumi, 39, came to the United States in 1996, just a few years after the fall of communism in Albania. "After 1991, we got what we wanted -- to have a free society -- but the economy died," he said.
Fumi came to the United States looking for economic opportunity. He also was drawn by the culture.
As a child he was sent to Greece to represent Albania in a music competition, playing his accordion. A nearby military base gave him a rare opportunity to meet Americans. Later, after the fall of communism, he was able to meet more Americans, and he fell in love with American movies.
Fumi's love of John Wayne Westerns took him first to Texas. Later, he moved to Pennsylvania and then to Seattle.
His aunt and uncle Najarta and Thomas Arsi and cousins Dorjan "Harry" and Oresti Arsi immigrated to this country in 1997. They eventually settled in Southern Pines and opened a restaurant called Corfu Taverna. They serve mostly Greek food, which is more familiar to Americans and comes easily to Thomas Arsi, an Albanian of Greek descent.
Fumi was running a painting company in Seattle last year when Harry Arsi urged him to come to North Carolina to start a new business.
"People were coming into the restaurant with jars asking to buy the soups, dressings, dips," Harry Arsi said. "That made us think, ‘Maybe we have something here.'"
Using family recipes, Fumi and Harry Arsi developed a line of fresh soups with no preservatives.
Arsi and Fumi go into the restaurant after it closes at night, sometimes working until 2 a.m. to make their soups and dips. Najarta Arsi often pitches in, even after working a full day in the restaurant.
"They take family recipes, but they are younger, so they put their own ideas into them, and I like that," Najarta Arsi said.
The cousins' early success may be due in part to the free tastings that Fumi has been doing at least once a week in every store.
At the Whole Foods in Winston-Salem, the soups and dips were yielding rave reviews and sales the other week.
"I'm very particular about hummus," said Sterling Hart, a shopper who stopped to sample Epiri's products. "This is creamy instead of gritty."
The hummus, Epiri's best-selling item, is made the Albanian way with artichoke hearts instead of tahini, which gives it a lighter texture and flavor than traditional hummus.
Beth Golden, a vegetarian, liked the deep flavor of the vegan white-bean soup. "Sometimes bean soup is blah," she said. "This isn't."
Latonya Peeples really liked the bean soup, too. "The texture is good. It's not salty at all, and it tastes fresh."
Fumi and Arsi are happy with the success they have had so far. But they are just getting started. They have renovated a spot next to Corfu to expand their production capacity. They expect to get into Whole Foods stores in South Carolina soon, and they are talking with other chains about carrying Epiri products. They plan to buy a bigger refrigerated truck. And they are looking to add more soups and dips.
At this point, Fumi said, the major challenge is getting the food out there while maintaining the standards that he and Arsi have set. "Everything is about distribution. And we want our food to be natural, with no preservatives, like homemade. We want everyone to love Albanian food."
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Epiri dips and soups
Here are the products that Epiri Foods makes. In Winston-Salem, they are sold in the refrigerated, prepared-foods section of Whole Foods Market, 41 Miller St.
• Hummus: Made with chickpeas, artichoke hearts, garlic, lemon juice and olive oil.
• Tzatziki: Similar to Greek tzatziki but without dill. It is made with sour cream instead of yogurt.
• Gent's Gourmet Grub: "In Albania, we just call this sauce," said Gent Fumi, explaining that it can be used as a dip, spread, sauce or marinade for meats. It is made with sour cream, walnuts and dill.
• Lemon-chicken soup: Similar to the Greek lemon soup avgolemono, except this is made with rice instead of orzo. It also has white-meat chicken, celery and carrots.
• White-bean soup: A thick, simply seasoned soup that is vegan and gluten-free.
• Tomato-basil: A vegetarian soup enriched with cream but with just 160 calories in 16 ounces.
All the Epiri products cost $4.99 for 16 ounces, except Gent's Gourmet Grub, which costs $4.50 for 12 ounces.
Source:journalnow.com/
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