Torrance's Two Chefs on a Roll

"Over 50 billion calories sold" is the company motto and many of them are on glistening display at the Torrance Two Chefs on A roll plant-oozing from Jacuzzi-sized vats, dripping off beaters on mixers bigger than you are or puffing up in walk-in ovens.

Run by Lori and Eliot Swartz, this food manufacturing company has expanded faster than a soufle on steroids.

Their 25,000 square-foot "Willy Wonkesque" factory is to food what Santa's workshop is to toys. Over in one corner, hair-netted workers are ladling out chocolate morsels into cheesecake bins and letting the chips fall where they may. In another, someone's feeding crumbled Oreos to a machine that stomps them into well manicured pie crusts. Elsewhere, cake tins are being dipped into tubs of chocolate batter. Heavenly smells abound.

After graduating from the prestigious Culinary Institute of America in New York. Eliot, now 39, and Lori. 38, worked as chefs at the acclaimed Chez Melange restaurant in Redondo Beach, leaving behind a luscious legacy of "almost flourless" chocolate cakes, before starting their own dessert company in 1985.
At first the business was retail and wholesale. Now, it almost exclusively caters to the wholesale market.

After churning out thousands of cheesecakes and tortes, the duo realized that the sky isn't the limit when it comes to cakes and pies. They began branching out into dips, sauces, and appetizers- to the current tune of 350,000 pounds of product shipped out each month. A sales in dip, they figured, sure beats a dip in sales. Their business has grown by 30 percent each year since it began. While they concentrated exclusively on desserts until 1989, sweets now account for 35 percent of their business.

Amoung their customers are restaurant chains, grocery stores and even an airline (KLM, for which Two Chefs on a Roll makes business and first-class meals).

Lori won't divulge the names of her restaurant clientele, any more than a plastic surgeon would reveal who he's nipped and tucked. Serving pre-prepared subcontracted food, after all, is the restaurant industry's little secret.

But they'll proudly tell you that they're making Claim Jumper's packaged carrot cake and their motherlode six-layer chocolate cake, coming soon to supermarkets if it's not there already. And they whip up a mean mushroom-artichoke dip for the Trader Joe's market chain.

You'd swear their silken caramel flan and to-diet-for mousse-filled chocolate ganache cake is made from scratch, You wouldn't be wrong. As their stationery boasts, "everything from nothing." Real cream, butter and chocolate go into their products, not the multisyllable stuff no one can pronounce.
While the Claim Jumper came equipped with their own recipe to replicate, it's usually the Two Chefs team that dreams up and pitches a product. First, research and development manager Teri Appleton rummages through thousands of recipes in her computer banks or concocts new ones until something hits all the right taste buds. The items are then tasted at what must be the best staff meeting in town.

Passing the test
Once it get the tongues-up there, the Item is sent over to a food technologist who minds the pragmatic end of the shop: things like pH balance, moisture levels, salt content, shelf life and the dredded sog factor.

When a food product finally gets the green light, it's ready to be sampled by the potential buyers. Based on their "feed" back, it's retooled: Maybe the chocolate needs to be turned down a bit for the waist-conscious, or the portions have to be downsized to meet pricing considerations.

The final hurdle is the packaging - making sure, for example, that the frosting doesn't wind up on the box lid and that the taste doesn't get lost in the transportation. The latter is sometimes accomplished by flash freezing the merchandise to 70 degrees before shipping it out.

Striving for perfection
"The shelves in the grocery stores are expensive real estate," Lori says. "We have to deliver a perfect product. We hit the ground running. It's either an immediate success or it's out the door. We've got the edge because we've worked in food service. Other people in this industry think you get second chances. We know better."

Among items currently in development is a "Red Velvet Elvis Cake," commissioned by a restaurant chain in the South. They're trying to capture the tackiness of those on-velvet paintings and the soul of the King all in one hound dog confection.

The Swartzes are also eyeing the humble meringue as a potential cash cow, since it's one of the few desserts that come by its non fat status honestly. Problem is, those myriad little puffs need acres of oven space. And even though the plant is open 20 hours a day, the extra oven time they take is still a logistical quagmire.

Volunteer spirit
When he is not fretting over meringue dimensions or how much to amplify the jalapeno jack cheese in a new product, Elliot volunteers in the Torrance Memorial Hospital E.R. He usually arrives laden with goodies for the staff.

Both Swartzes like to season their work with a pinch of humor. They refer to "pielibrium- the point at which the crust on a piece of pie outweighs the filling and tips over" or "Oreosis- the practice of eating the cream center of an Oreo before eating the cookie outside." And they promise their customers that "we won't waste your thyme" and "we work with you to help make more dough." Corny? Sure. But nothing that can put a stop to the roll that these Two Chefs on a Roll are on.

Two Chefs On A Roll, Inc., 22625 S. Western Avenue, Torrance, CA 90501. Tel: 310-533-0190; Fax: 310-533-5909.