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Jeno Paulucci, 93; founder of Chun King and Jeno's food companies
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deep...@my-deja.com
Nov 25, 2011, 11:33:34 AM11/25/11
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http://www.duluthnewstribune.com/event/article/id/215550/group/homepage/
Jeno Paulucci, Duluth and Iron Range business icon, dies
Four days after losing his beloved wife of more than 64 years, Jeno
Paulucci died at his Duluth home on Thanksgiving morning. He was 93.
By: News Tribune staff, Duluth News Tribune
Jeno and Lois Paulucci had “an incredible love story,” their daughter
Cindy Paulucci Selton said Thursday.
Four days after losing his beloved wife of more than 64 years, Jeno
Paulucci died at his Duluth home on Thanksgiving morning. He was 93.
“Once my mother passed, my father was determined to be with her,”
Selton said. “That was his wish, to be with Lois.”
Former Duluth Mayor Gary Doty, who is scheduled to deliver the eulogy
at Lois Paulucci’s funeral on Monday, was stunned when he heard the
news.
“What a tragedy, to lose two people like that in such a short time,”
Doty said.
Doty recalled that in his first run for office, Paulucci backed his
opponent. Yet the two men became close friends, particularly in later
years. And while “he had a reputation as a very tough man,” Doty
remembered Paulucci for his kindness.
“If there were people in need, I could call Jeno, and he never turned
it down,” Doty said.
He also talked about the Pauluccis as a couple. “Lois understood
Jeno,” Doty said. “She understood that Jeno was in charge of his
business and he was going to do what he was going to do. (But) when
they were together, Jeno deferred to Lois.”
They would have been married 65 years in February, said Selton, one of
the couple’s three children. “He was the most incredible man in the
world,” she said of her father. “He was a fantastic husband, and a
wonderful, wonderful father.”
Although Paulucci was known worldwide, he said in a 2003 interview
that he viewed himself as a poor kid from Hibbing. “I’m just a peddler
from the Iron Range,” he said.
Paulucci built several food empires, including Chun King, Jeno’s Inc.
and Luigino’s Inc. (now known as Michelina’s Inc.).
But he didn’t fit any mold. “Sometimes it’s a little hard to figure
out who he is,” friend and former employee Don Mason once said.
Jeno could be a giving, loyal friend or a feared enemy who fired
employees at will, skewered opponents with obscenities or took out
full-page newspaper ads denouncing people and policies he disagreed
with. His temper was the stuff of many stories. “I’ve never gone
through life worrying what people think of me,” Jeno said.
He frequently settled disputes in court. Usually they dealt with
business matters, not always. In 2005 he sued his own daughter, Gina
Paulucci.
But he also had a generous side. He set up a foundation to help the
poor. He often helped friends in need. He contributed countless hours
to using his influence with the powerful for the betterment of Duluth
and Sanford, Fla., where he lived during the winter.
Humble beginnings
The man everyone knew as Jeno was born July 7, 1918, in Aurora. His
mother, Michelina, and father, Ettore, Italian immigrants, named him
Luigino Francesco Paolucci.
His father was an iron miner who was injured during Jeno’s childhood
and couldn’t work.
After the family, including his older sister, Elizabeth, moved to
Hibbing, he lived in poverty and amid the chaos of an illegal drinking
establishment in his own house. He picked up coal spilled along the
railroad tracks to heat the house.
He started in the food business at age 12 at the Daylight Economy
Market in Hibbing.
After graduating from Hibbing High School in 1935, first he sold
groceries for C.A. Pearson Wholesale and then became a traveling
salesman for St. Paul-based wholesale grocer Hancock Nelson
Mercantile, where he claims he earned more money than the company’s
owner.
Nine years later, he began growing bean sprouts in Duluth, and then
founded Duluth-based Chun King, a line of canned Chinese food.
Jeno would do almost anything to sell his products. He and friends
tell a classic tale about his efforts to sell to the Food Fair grocery
chain in 1948, where he had lost an account.
Jeno’s autobiography tells the tale like this: The chain’s top buyer
agreed to compare Chun King’s products with a competitor’s. Jeno
opened a can of Chun King Chinese vegetables and was horrified to find
a dead grasshopper.
Before the buyer could see or take a sample, Jeno popped the
grasshopper into his mouth with some vegetables and swallowed. The
buyer was none the wiser and Food Fair became one of Chun King’s
biggest customers.
He called his autobiography “Sometimes You Have to Eat the
Grasshopper.”
Egg rolls to pizza rolls
In 1966, Jeno sold Chun King to R.J. Reynolds Foods Inc. for $63
million.
Two years later, he became the first chairman of R.J. Reynolds Food
Co. But corporate culture didn’t agree with his independent spirit and
he soon went back to building another business of his own that he
called Jeno’s Inc.
The new company made a popular new frozen finger-food snack called
pizza rolls and, at one time, grew to be Duluth’s largest employer.
In 1985, he sold Jeno’s to Pillsbury for $135 million.
Then he turned his attention to Florida real estate, where he built
the planned community of Heathrow, near Orlando, from the ground up.
He sold it in 1992 for $50 million plus an undisclosed settlement from
a lawsuit over the deal.
Jeno was 72 in 1990 when his noncompete agreement with Pillsbury
expired and he began yet another company, Luigino’s Inc., which made
frozen, microwaveable entrees and snacks.
Age didn’t deter Jeno from working long days and a punishing schedule
to build the company into what was estimated in 2004 to be a $300
million-a-year-plus firm with international scope.
In 2004, he turned over the day-to-day operations to his management
team, but he said emphatically he was not retiring. Instead, he said
he wanted to build yet another food company.
Jeno also had business flops. In the 1960s, he gave up on his
Wilderness Valley Farms, which grew vegetables for Chun King near Zim.
Pizza Kwik — a company that sold equipment and ingredients to
pizzerias — and China Kwik, based on the same concept, failed, he said
in his autobiography.
Nine of his 10 Pasta Lovers restaurants closed, as did Pasta Bowl Inc.
In the 2003 interview, he said that a guess of a half-billion dollars
for his net worth was “in the ballpark.”
Never part of establishment
Jeno’s independence kept him from becoming part of the Duluth
establishment.
Even so, he created, or had a strong hand in creating, half a dozen or
more civic organizations, including Northeast Minnesota Organization
for Economic Education, the Jeno & Lois Paulucci Family Foundation and
the National Italian American Foundation.
He worked on community projects such as helping local youth hockey
teams and spearheading the Minnesota Taconite Amendment as a way to
save the iron mining industry. In 2006, he continued his long-term
campaign to raise the federal minimum wage, which he called “a damned
disgrace at $5.15 an hour.”
He considered his work to make the Duluth Arena-Auditorium (Duluth
Entertainment Convention Center) a reality to be his greatest public
service.
Jeno was chairman for Nixon nationwide in 1972. A political
independent, he said he had advisory relationships with seven U.S.
presidents. He headed flood and earthquake relief efforts in Italy in
1976 and 1980 on behalf of the United States.
He once convinced officials of Ernst & Young’s World Entrepreneur of
the Year competition to conduct a debate among finalists about how to
use their economic influence for world peace.
The Paulucci Family Foundation, according to the IRS Form 990 filed
for 2004 (the most recent available), had $2.2 million in funds.
Publicly, the foundation has financed a large portion of Duluth’s
Bayfront Festival Park and donated holiday turkeys to local food
shelves. Much of its work has been done privately.
“He shares his good fortune with his friends,” high school chum Tom
Dougherty of Dougherty Funeral Home in Duluth said in a News Tribune
interview once. Jeno treated him and several friends to many hunting
and fishing trips as far away as the Northwest Territories in Canada.
Jeno also flew former classmates to Hibbing High School class of 1935
reunions — classmates who wouldn’t otherwise be able to attend.
He performed many other unpublicized acts of charity, from taking on
workers who weren’t considered employable to helping rehabilitate
convicted felons.
Jeno Paulucci is survived by son Michael J. (Joan) Paulucci of Palm
Coast, Fla.; daughters Cynthia (Robert) Selton of Longwood, Fla., and
Gina Paulucci of Wayzata, Minn.; four grandchildren; and numerous
great-grandchildren.
News Tribune staff writer John Lundy contributed to this report.
Jeno Paulucci, Duluth and Iron Range business icon, dies
Four days after losing his beloved wife of more than 64 years, Jeno
Paulucci died at his Duluth home on Thanksgiving morning. He was 93.
By: News Tribune staff, Duluth News Tribune
Jeno and Lois Paulucci had “an incredible love story,” their daughter
Cindy Paulucci Selton said Thursday.
Four days after losing his beloved wife of more than 64 years, Jeno
Paulucci died at his Duluth home on Thanksgiving morning. He was 93.
“Once my mother passed, my father was determined to be with her,”
Selton said. “That was his wish, to be with Lois.”
Former Duluth Mayor Gary Doty, who is scheduled to deliver the eulogy
at Lois Paulucci’s funeral on Monday, was stunned when he heard the
news.
“What a tragedy, to lose two people like that in such a short time,”
Doty said.
Doty recalled that in his first run for office, Paulucci backed his
opponent. Yet the two men became close friends, particularly in later
years. And while “he had a reputation as a very tough man,” Doty
remembered Paulucci for his kindness.
“If there were people in need, I could call Jeno, and he never turned
it down,” Doty said.
He also talked about the Pauluccis as a couple. “Lois understood
Jeno,” Doty said. “She understood that Jeno was in charge of his
business and he was going to do what he was going to do. (But) when
they were together, Jeno deferred to Lois.”
They would have been married 65 years in February, said Selton, one of
the couple’s three children. “He was the most incredible man in the
world,” she said of her father. “He was a fantastic husband, and a
wonderful, wonderful father.”
Although Paulucci was known worldwide, he said in a 2003 interview
that he viewed himself as a poor kid from Hibbing. “I’m just a peddler
from the Iron Range,” he said.
Paulucci built several food empires, including Chun King, Jeno’s Inc.
and Luigino’s Inc. (now known as Michelina’s Inc.).
But he didn’t fit any mold. “Sometimes it’s a little hard to figure
out who he is,” friend and former employee Don Mason once said.
Jeno could be a giving, loyal friend or a feared enemy who fired
employees at will, skewered opponents with obscenities or took out
full-page newspaper ads denouncing people and policies he disagreed
with. His temper was the stuff of many stories. “I’ve never gone
through life worrying what people think of me,” Jeno said.
He frequently settled disputes in court. Usually they dealt with
business matters, not always. In 2005 he sued his own daughter, Gina
Paulucci.
But he also had a generous side. He set up a foundation to help the
poor. He often helped friends in need. He contributed countless hours
to using his influence with the powerful for the betterment of Duluth
and Sanford, Fla., where he lived during the winter.
Humble beginnings
The man everyone knew as Jeno was born July 7, 1918, in Aurora. His
mother, Michelina, and father, Ettore, Italian immigrants, named him
Luigino Francesco Paolucci.
His father was an iron miner who was injured during Jeno’s childhood
and couldn’t work.
After the family, including his older sister, Elizabeth, moved to
Hibbing, he lived in poverty and amid the chaos of an illegal drinking
establishment in his own house. He picked up coal spilled along the
railroad tracks to heat the house.
He started in the food business at age 12 at the Daylight Economy
Market in Hibbing.
After graduating from Hibbing High School in 1935, first he sold
groceries for C.A. Pearson Wholesale and then became a traveling
salesman for St. Paul-based wholesale grocer Hancock Nelson
Mercantile, where he claims he earned more money than the company’s
owner.
Nine years later, he began growing bean sprouts in Duluth, and then
founded Duluth-based Chun King, a line of canned Chinese food.
Jeno would do almost anything to sell his products. He and friends
tell a classic tale about his efforts to sell to the Food Fair grocery
chain in 1948, where he had lost an account.
Jeno’s autobiography tells the tale like this: The chain’s top buyer
agreed to compare Chun King’s products with a competitor’s. Jeno
opened a can of Chun King Chinese vegetables and was horrified to find
a dead grasshopper.
Before the buyer could see or take a sample, Jeno popped the
grasshopper into his mouth with some vegetables and swallowed. The
buyer was none the wiser and Food Fair became one of Chun King’s
biggest customers.
He called his autobiography “Sometimes You Have to Eat the
Grasshopper.”
Egg rolls to pizza rolls
In 1966, Jeno sold Chun King to R.J. Reynolds Foods Inc. for $63
million.
Two years later, he became the first chairman of R.J. Reynolds Food
Co. But corporate culture didn’t agree with his independent spirit and
he soon went back to building another business of his own that he
called Jeno’s Inc.
The new company made a popular new frozen finger-food snack called
pizza rolls and, at one time, grew to be Duluth’s largest employer.
In 1985, he sold Jeno’s to Pillsbury for $135 million.
Then he turned his attention to Florida real estate, where he built
the planned community of Heathrow, near Orlando, from the ground up.
He sold it in 1992 for $50 million plus an undisclosed settlement from
a lawsuit over the deal.
Jeno was 72 in 1990 when his noncompete agreement with Pillsbury
expired and he began yet another company, Luigino’s Inc., which made
frozen, microwaveable entrees and snacks.
Age didn’t deter Jeno from working long days and a punishing schedule
to build the company into what was estimated in 2004 to be a $300
million-a-year-plus firm with international scope.
In 2004, he turned over the day-to-day operations to his management
team, but he said emphatically he was not retiring. Instead, he said
he wanted to build yet another food company.
Jeno also had business flops. In the 1960s, he gave up on his
Wilderness Valley Farms, which grew vegetables for Chun King near Zim.
Pizza Kwik — a company that sold equipment and ingredients to
pizzerias — and China Kwik, based on the same concept, failed, he said
in his autobiography.
Nine of his 10 Pasta Lovers restaurants closed, as did Pasta Bowl Inc.
In the 2003 interview, he said that a guess of a half-billion dollars
for his net worth was “in the ballpark.”
Never part of establishment
Jeno’s independence kept him from becoming part of the Duluth
establishment.
Even so, he created, or had a strong hand in creating, half a dozen or
more civic organizations, including Northeast Minnesota Organization
for Economic Education, the Jeno & Lois Paulucci Family Foundation and
the National Italian American Foundation.
He worked on community projects such as helping local youth hockey
teams and spearheading the Minnesota Taconite Amendment as a way to
save the iron mining industry. In 2006, he continued his long-term
campaign to raise the federal minimum wage, which he called “a damned
disgrace at $5.15 an hour.”
He considered his work to make the Duluth Arena-Auditorium (Duluth
Entertainment Convention Center) a reality to be his greatest public
service.
Jeno was chairman for Nixon nationwide in 1972. A political
independent, he said he had advisory relationships with seven U.S.
presidents. He headed flood and earthquake relief efforts in Italy in
1976 and 1980 on behalf of the United States.
He once convinced officials of Ernst & Young’s World Entrepreneur of
the Year competition to conduct a debate among finalists about how to
use their economic influence for world peace.
The Paulucci Family Foundation, according to the IRS Form 990 filed
for 2004 (the most recent available), had $2.2 million in funds.
Publicly, the foundation has financed a large portion of Duluth’s
Bayfront Festival Park and donated holiday turkeys to local food
shelves. Much of its work has been done privately.
“He shares his good fortune with his friends,” high school chum Tom
Dougherty of Dougherty Funeral Home in Duluth said in a News Tribune
interview once. Jeno treated him and several friends to many hunting
and fishing trips as far away as the Northwest Territories in Canada.
Jeno also flew former classmates to Hibbing High School class of 1935
reunions — classmates who wouldn’t otherwise be able to attend.
He performed many other unpublicized acts of charity, from taking on
workers who weren’t considered employable to helping rehabilitate
convicted felons.
Jeno Paulucci is survived by son Michael J. (Joan) Paulucci of Palm
Coast, Fla.; daughters Cynthia (Robert) Selton of Longwood, Fla., and
Gina Paulucci of Wayzata, Minn.; four grandchildren; and numerous
great-grandchildren.
News Tribune staff writer John Lundy contributed to this report.
Scott Brady
Nov 25, 2011, 12:17:32 PM11/25/11
to
On Nov 25, 10:33 am, deepst...@my-deja.com wrote:
> Four days after losing his beloved wife of more than 64 years, Jeno
> Paulucci died at his Duluth home on Thanksgiving morning. He was 93.
I wondered why none of his wife's obituaries managed to quote him. He
> Four days after losing his beloved wife of more than 64 years, Jeno
> Paulucci died at his Duluth home on Thanksgiving morning. He was 93.
was only one of three people added to my list of 2012 pool prospects
that day who failed to last 24 hours.
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