Founded in 1994 by Andy Emrisko.
Andy Emrisko, Old World Foods founder, has humble roots. Andy is the son of a coal miner, raised in the Appalachian hollows of southeastern Ohio. After spending all day outdoors he would build a tremendous appetite that was lovingly satisfied by his mother who could take the simplest foods and make them delicious. Andy owned a variety of businesses over the years and always found himself drawn to the food service industry. Andy opened his first restaurant in 1989 specializing in Eastern European, home grown and full flavored foods. He dabbled with a number of old family recipes and he too lovingly satisfied the appetites of the factory workers in the Cleveland, Ohio area. He quickly built a reputation for making one of the best potato pancakes. One of Andy’s customers suggested that he needed to share these potato pancakes with the world and Andy pondered this suggestion. Soon after, Andy closed the restaurant and devoted himself completely to the creation of Old World Foods.
Old World Foods, Cleveland’s first potato pancake factory was started in 1994. Andy started with just a single frying pan and hand grinder to create his delicious potato pancakes. The world kept asking for more and more of these delicious treats and Andy moved the operation to a factory in the Slavic Village area of Cleveland Ohio. Old World Foods has sold over 3,000,000 of these potato pancakes in the last five years. From 1994 through 2012 Andy spent significant energy in perfecting the process for making, distributing, and selling the potato pancake. Over the years Old World Foods has added additional products. One of these products is a mini finger size version of the original 4” potato pancake. Old World Foods also offers a delicious potato and cheese pierogi. Over the last few years Old World Foods has been perfecting a chicken paprikas sauce recipe. While preparing to serve the latest product, chicken paprikas sauce, there was a need for a drop dumpling also known as spaetzle and the current market could not deliver a consistent, tasty, plump, varied size solution so Old World Foods did.
Old World Foods runs a lean manufacturing operation capable of producing approximately 15,000 large potato pancakes or 10,000 mini finger sized potato pancake in a daily standard manufacturing run.
Starting in 2013 Andy decided to include additional family members to assist the continued growth of the company. Old World Foods has been working with other strategic partners to continue the successful branding of their existing product line and the launch of the additional product lines. These new strategies will assure Old World Foods will meet all product demands and exceed customer expectations.
In conclusion, with consideration of new product ideas, growing trends for prepared comfort foods, and family legacy for the business, Old World Foods is prepared to meet any challenge that arises.
