Dallas, TX, March 26th, 2016 – OSTROMbrands, www.ostrombrands.com, is proud to announce that we have been accepted as a member to Specialty Food Association with our brand Le Zie and look forward introducing our products to the US market during the upcoming Fancy Food Show in NY this summer.
OSTROMbrands mission is "Providing a brand experience consumers connect and relate to with passion!”. Le Zie truly meet these criteria with an authentic brand story coupled with exceptional gourmet quality products.
Staying true to our heritage, brand values, traditional processes and genuine passion for food Le Zie are proud to offer our very own, exclusive, and truly handpicked “Farmers Oil” (Natural & Flavored) from our farm land in the valleys of Maddaloni and the world renowned Pasta from Gragnano, within the Campania region in southern Italy. In addition to these gourmet products Le Zie also carry a complete Kitchenware line that has been refined and improved over the years.
Our Story
The inspiration and story behind Le Zie (The Aunts) founded in 2009, came from Mr Paolo Roberto and his Aunts with roots from the town of Maddaloni in Southern Italy. The true passion for food and his strong family bond has always been a corner stone in Paolo’s life. Paolo grew up in Sweden with his Italian father and Swedish mother. His versatile story began already during his youth as a street fighter in Stockholm, Sweden. He developed his skills within the boxing ring and was a successful professional fighter for ten years. During his career he won the WBC International Welterweight and WBO Inter-Continental welterweight belt. His record included 33 fights with 28 wins and 3 losses. After losing the first defense fight of his WBO title he decided to never fight professionally again. We talk about this as the birth of Le Zie. With passion, drive, entrepreneurship, and hard work he has become a successful business man and is today a celebrity hosting numerous TV-shows, acting as motivational speaker and author of several cook (best seller in Sweden) and training books. Paolo was also featured in some chapters, written by the famous Swedish author Stieg Larsson in “The Girl Who Played with Fire”, from the “Millenium series” that sold over 80 million books, and Paolo played himself in the movie based on the book. While running 10 successful companies in Sweden Paolo still visit his family in Maddaloni on a regular basis.
History and Strategy
Le Zie was initially not targeted towards retail but rather created to fill a gap existing within the corporate gift and incentive market in Sweden. From initial small scale production of our oil and pasta we soon got requests from our clients to increase volume and expand our product line as their employees and customers loved our brand story and quality products. While continuing to focus on the corporate gift and incentive market consumers reached out and asked where they could find our products in retail, hence we made a strategic decision introducing our brand to retail during 2015 in Sweden. Our US market strategy is to support both gourmet retail & corporate gift & incentive market. While we know each product category (kitchenware, olive oil, pasta) can hold on itself in the high end retail we believe the combination of product categories allows for a diverse, and potentially even stronger value proposition, making great impact on both gourmet gift retail and corporate incentive market. Since the introduction of Le Zie to the US market in January 2016 (PPAI EXPO in Las Vegas and Dallas Total Home & Gift Market) we have been praised for our quality products, packaging and brand story. We look forward meeting with you at our booth during the Summer Fancy Food Show to further share our brand story as well as get your valuable feedback. You will also get the chance to meet with Paolo Roberto in person. Our booth, #5567, is located in the North Hall. Welcome!