San Diego Business Journal - June 7, 1993

by Laura Kaufman

Slices of chocolate chip cheesecake have been mysteriously disappearing from Acapulco Mexican Restaurants' dessert trays. Sweet-tooth shoplifters, however, are in for a rude surprise if they bite into the tasty looking morsels.

The cake, as well as the flan, key lime pie, hot fudge sundae and deep-fried ice cream in the glass case are all fakes right down to the whipped cream, cherries and slivered almonds.

The desserts are manufactured by Fax Foods, a Vista Company that sold nearly $1 million in food facsimiles to restaurants, food companies and grocery stores in 1992. Their customers include Wal-Mart's deli, Church's Fried Chicken and TCBY Yogurt.

The faux desserts make good business sense, said company founder Francesco Dorigo, a gourmet chef.

"The real ones would only last a couple of minutes," said Dorigo, a soft-spoken Italian immigrant whose round appearance attests to his love of food. "These always look fresh and appetizing. You can use them as a sales tool."

In fact, dessert sales at Acapulco restaurants nearly doubled during a trial run of the dessert trays in three locations, Dorigo said. Since October, the replicas have become a staple at all outlets, and restaurant management is so enthused that they have asked Fax to re-create appetizers, including burro wings and guacamole and chips.

Since the 250 Bennigan's restaurants started using Fax desserts a year ago, the $240-per-tray investment has paid for itself - with sales of sugary treats growing about 5 percent.

REAL FOOD LOSES APPEAL
"That's a lot for desserts," said John Walker, kitchen manager at the Mission Valley store. "We started out with dessert trays using the desserts themselves, but had to change them once a day. By the close of the day, they wouldn't look that presentable. The artificial food has worked great."

"It takes a lot of education, it's a new thing," said Dorigo. "People say, 'I'm selling the real thing, why would you want to sell me plastic food?' Once they use it, they can see the advantages."

Local health departments also see the benefits of using faux food that doesn't draw flies. Occasionally, inspectors refer restaurants with unsanitary displays to the company.

"He's an artist," said Pat Hileman, Fax Foods' vice president of finance. With Dorigo's experience in cooking gourmet dishes, "his replicas are closer to reality than what people are serving," claims Hileman.

"He sat here four nights making garnishes - sharks out of cucumber, birds out of apples, frogs out of eggs. I always kid him that he needs a hobby. He says he has a hobby - he cooks."

PERFECTION IS UNDOING
Sometimes Dorigo's perfectionism is his undoing, as when he made facsimiles of a popular TV dinners.

"The TV dinners looked better than the real thing," Dorigo said. "It was problem for awhile. People were not getting what they saw."

Dorigo was ordered to make the food look less appetizing."That was kind of difficult to do," he said.

Dorigo has no American competitor in his quest for realism. Iwazaki Images, a Japanese company with an Ensenada maquiladora, is the closest competitor. Dorigo said he refers all requests for faux sushi to Iwazaki.

"We try to remain friends," he said.

This year, Fax sales are expected to double. The company recently purchased its 15,000-square-foot building in Waterview Business Park in South Vista Industrial Park.

Fax Foods also acquired a marketing company to sell its products. Up to now the 4-year-old company has been relying on word-of-mouth and trade shows.

"We did a market study on this stuff and saw it was a $40 million kind of market - and that's being conservative," Dorigo said.

Hottest Product
Fax's hottest selling product is artificial kale that is generally used for salad bar decoration. Acapulco is testing the product in some of its local restaurants to see if it will save money in labor costs and purchase of the real thing.

"The kale is hitting its full stride. It's going very well," said Dorigo, adding that it is shipped to markets as far away as Canada, Mexico, Australia and Taiwan.

Dorigo, 39, attended culinary school as a teen-ager, then worked as a chef in Switzerland, at a chocolate factory in Germany, and aboard cruise ships. In 1984, he obtained a bachelor's degree in physics from California State University, Northridge, boosting his ability to concoct formulas for their food-like appearance.

Before starting Fax Foods, he owned a sand-picture company in Gardena and began experimenting with liquid metal and plastic.

Every creation bars the mark of Dorigo's artistry. A store display commissioned by Hagen Daz features an ice cream bar artfully arranged on a doily, accompanied by chocolate chunks and a raspberry wrapped in mint leaves.

"We don't just make an ice cream bar, we make it presentable," Dorigo said. Although he is capable of cooking any of the food he copies, Dorigo usually asks for a sample from the company.

"When we do desserts, we have to have three - two we use in production and one we get to eat," said Hileman, patting his ample tummy. "We eat a lot of them."

Liquid Silicone

The first step in creating a facsimile is covering the original with liquid silicone to make a mold. The molds are then heated and filled with liquid foam rubber, resin or plastic. They're baked in microwave ovens and, after they have cooled, excess pieces are stripped away.

Then come the final touches. Stems of red bell peppers are painted green, yellow speckles are sprayed to tomatoes, and sourdough bread that looks like raw dough out of the microwave is painted a toasty brown.

Fax Foods has filled some unusual orders, including dirty brown turnips requested by the Holocaust museum in Washington, D.C.

The movie "A Bronx Tale," due out this summer and starring Robert DeNiro, used Fax meat, seafood, fruit and vegetables to supply an outdoor market scene. Set decorators figured fakes would be cheaper than replacing real food as take after take unfolded.

But the strangest request came from employees of Wal-Mart, who wanted Fax Foods to manufacture what could politely be described as a sandwich of nose contents. At first, Dorigo hesitated making the gag gift for the company president, but finally relented, using plastic shavings from the workroom floor. And how was the sandwich received?

"We didn't ask about that," Dorigo said with a laugh. "We really didn't want to know."

Return to In the News