Vivian Villa

Owner, Product Developer & Chef @ Hot, Sour, Salty, Sweet Inc.

About

Vivian is a sought-after North-American chef and product development expert. She was born in Ottawa but spent most of her childhood in Northern Italy learning Italian as her first language. She was making ravioli at age 5 with her grandmother- entrenched in amazing food culture! In 1991, she started Villa's Authentic Sauces as a home-based business. Her first big break came with the opportunity to create and manufacture basil pesto for President's Choice wood fired pizza program in 1992. She grew her line of all-natural, no preservative pesto sauces to become a critically-acclaimed and award winning line. Villa's sauces can be found in: Loblaws, Sobeys, Metro, Farmboy, Whole Foods, Maxi & Co (QC), Longo's Markets, Thrifty's (Vancouver), and Pete's Frootique (East Coast). Although she got her start with pesto sauces, she went on to develop dry blends, coating systems for proteins, seasoning blends, specialty sauces, freeze/thaw applications and more!

Country

Canada

City

Greater Toronto Area

Industry

Food & Beverages

Skill

Product Development, Food Safety, Research and Development (R&D), Dry Rub Development

Experience

Owner, Product Developer & Chef

Hot, Sour, Salty, Sweet Inc.

1991-9 - Present · 35 yrs 1 mo

Toronto, Canada Area

Hot, Sour, Salty, Sweet Inc is a food product development and food industry consultancy company located in Toronto Ontario, servicing international companies. Services: - Food product development - Menu ideation and creation - Food product line extensions - Co-packing consultations - Recipe modification - CFIA approved product testing - Packaging solutions - Product Distribution - Media contact - Marketing Strategies - Raw material procurement - Introduction to GMP, HACCP, Food Safety regulations HACCP Certified Food Plant Set Up: - Designed, set up and run 3 HACCP compliant food plants in Ontario Previous Clients for Product Development: Angy's Pasta (Westfield, MA) Arby's Canada Baron's (West Coast) Betty's on King Bubi's (Windsor) Bubi's Restaurant (Windsor) Crave It Restaurant Group (Burger's Priest, Via Cibo, Bangkok Buri) Darden Group (Red Lobster, Olive Garden) Denninger's District Taco (Washington DC) Einstein's Bagels Famous Dave's BBQ Fernway Brands Hellofresh/Chef's Plate- development, manufacture packaging of wet sauces for meal kits distributed nationwide at our facility in Stoney Creek, Ontario John Morrell Group (Armour Echrich, Smithfield Foods, Saratoga Specialties, Subway Lehmann Farms (NY) Loblaws Maccheroni's (Hamilton) Michel's Baugette Minervas Restaurant Group Moe's Southwest Grill Nathan's Hot Dogs Nem Foods New York Fries Oliver and Bonacini Restaurants Oliver Bonacini Restaurant Group Otter Valley Foods Peer Foods Perkins Piazza Panini (Woodbridge) Pickle Barrel Pizza Pizza Prime Restaurants (East Side Marios, Bier Markt) Smokes Poutinerie Sobeys Sweet Source Sweet Williams TGI Fridays (TriArtisan Group) Transcontinental Gourmet Foods (Aldi, Kroeger, Trader Joe's) Vienna Beef (Chicago) Wendy's Yum! Brands - KFC, Pizza Hut, Taco Bell Hotels: King Edward Hotel Sutton Place Hotel St. Andrews College Granite Club Marriott Fallsview (Niagara) Table Rock House (Niagara) Full list of clients on website: HotSourSaltySweetInc.com