
Secretive Billionaire Makes The Cheese For Pizza Hut, Domino's And Papa John's - breck
https://www.forbes.com/sites/chloesorvino/2017/05/23/james-leprino-exclusive-mozzarella-billionaire-cheese-pizza-hut-dominos-papa-johns/#7ca143b54958
======
alaskamiller
Reminds me of the last boss I worked for that works diligently since high
school to build a hundred million dollar business in an unsexy industry with
factories across America. Aside from growing up in silicon valley, he's the
only other inspiration that rich is attainable and accessible.

Unflashy and unassuming, he doesn't try to draw press, hired older folks to be
the faces. It's just like watching someone that's really good at playing this
video game called spreadsheet. Patiently stacking and stacking day in and day
out the same thing, but bigger and bigger.

    
    
      consistency and scalability... Leprino made himself indispensable
    

That's all it is.

~~~
bitexploder
Reminds me of commander Chris Hadfields philosophy of always aiming to be a
Zero. He said in any environment you could be a -1 a 0 or a +1. You don't get
to decide which of those your efforts end up being. He further observes coming
into a new environment and doing too much or trying to overachieve can often
just make a mess, making you a -1. Aim to be a zero. Stack those shelves, do
the boring work you know you can do well until you are sure you can handle the
more complex chores. Also sort of reminds me of Net Promoter Score; would you
recommend X to friends and family?

Just do the thing that is the point of the place and do the shit out of it,
why wouldn't you? -- Louis CK

There is wisdom in hard, but simple work that others value, even in tech.
Don't be too clever in that MVP. Substance over style. Etc etc.

~~~
hobs
Just a note that NPS uses a scale with low predictive validity and you should
probably tell people to stop using it.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Net_Promoter#Criticism_of_NPS](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Net_Promoter#Criticism_of_NPS)

~~~
bitexploder
Interesting. I do like the question from a general 'do you like thing X'
perspective, but as critics seem to rightly argue, you should not use it
alone.

Another question I like in the same vein, "Would you recommend other people to
work here?". I think it is just one of many measures of "engagement" though.

Also, I have to agree with the general sentiment against NPS. I have seen
teams forced into UI enhancement death marches because their app got a low
NPS. It was plastered on billboards and there was a huge push to get the NPS
up. It became a bit of a running joke. That anecdotal experience made me
really wary of it in general, even though I like the concept as a general
engagement measure.... maybe you shouldn't base management decisions on just
that :)

~~~
hobs
I have worked for multiple large and small companies who thought NPS was a
valid metric for customer feedback, and in my experience it has told us little
to no information even though management has generally said we have to be at X
to be successful.

When I worked for Apple Support the best in breed was a five point scale with
a neutral midpoint and multiple questions on different axis, just as the
wikipedia article stated, and I felt it was a clear and straightforward method
of measuring customer satisfaction and in some cases quality, so that is what
I recommend.

------
transitorykris
I love this story. Yes, building unsexy things can be lucrative. It's also
amazing that him and his partner has spent their lives producing a product
that within a margin of error has fed everyone in America at some point. But,
it gave me time to stop and reflect, I've personally (and unknowingly until
now) worked with about 25k lbs of his cheese during my tenure at Pizza Hut.

------
deepnotderp
It's sad that the engineer that made everything happen, Lester Kielsmeier,
only got a tiny fraction of the overall wealth. Maybe this can change someday?
I'm not hopeful though...

~~~
burntrelish1273
It's important for scientists, engineers and inventors to also understand how
business works to not get short-changed and how to negotiate an equal equity
stake. Ignorance is no excuse.

Anyone whom offers to go into business with someone (at a less than equal
footing) or tries to make them their employee when they're the primary
technologist is likely cheating them a-priori.

------
burntrelish1273
Just an FYI: cheese is the most expensive ingredient in/on a pizza, so this
makes perfect sense.

Reason: think of all the gallons of milk and processing it takes to make an
unit of cheese.

Source: Someone whom worked at a Pizza Hut in South San Jose in high-school.

PS: Another interesting business model (in Texas) is Braum's, which is a large
co-op ice cream/restaurant/convenience store chain run on behalf of a
consortium of dairy farmers. This cuts out middlemen and is basically direct-
to-consumer. The prices are much lower than similar SKUs in local grocery
stores and the quality is quite high.

~~~
techsupporter
Don't mean to nitpick but Braum's isn't a co-op/consortium. It's a single
family's massively-integrated retail operation. They own and operate basically
all of their farms and ranches along with the manufacturing plants for their
containers and even their delivery fleet. Braum is the last name of the guy
who founded it.

(Oh, and it's not Texan. Braum's is an Okie brand; they don't open up stores
more than about 300 miles from their central farms in Oklahoma.)

~~~
burntrelish1273
Everything before the word "but" is BS.

I never said it was based in Texas, you read the wikipedia and acted like an
expert. It's a vertically-integrated supply-chain.

~~~
techsupporter
I worked for Braum's for four years in Fort Worth, Texas. It was my first
"real" job after high school. They have a little book that they give employees
that describes the company and the history. The company describes itself like
I did. Would you like a picture as proof of my bona fides?

Please don't assume malice.

~~~
kevin_thibedeau
On the internet nobody knows you're an expert.

------
puranjay
Aside: screw Forbes. Between the pre-load ad screen and the autolay ad video
(which for some reason I couldn't even close), their site is downright
unusable.

~~~
DamonHD
I just gave up visiting Forbes long since. I use ads myself (eg AdSense and
AdWords) and have no objection to well-behaved ad copy, but I run NoScript for
safety and F's site is thus pretty well unusable to me.

------
NelsonMinar
See also from 2014 "New Mexico dairy shuts down after undercover activist
videotape". A dairy that supplied Leprino was caught on video treating cows
horribly. Leprino seems to have responded reasonably.

> On Thursday, Denver-based Leprino Foods, for whom Winchester Dairy was a
> supplier, announced a program that requires its dairy suppliers and farmers
> to comply with new company guidelines regarding animal care. Leprino, the
> world’s largest producer of mozzarella cheese and a supplier to fast-food
> chains nationwide, has said that it was “extremely repulsed” by the video.

[http://www.latimes.com/nation/la-na-dairy-farm-
video-2014121...](http://www.latimes.com/nation/la-na-dairy-farm-
video-20141219-story.html)

~~~
cies
> Leprino seems to have responded reasonably.

In line with his "ethics" principle that comes after quality and price.

Anyway, if you value the wellbeing of animals going vegan is pretty much the
only to me. There's no such thing as animal-friendly meat or bio-industrial
dairy.

~~~
whiddershins
But then there would be no cows.

~~~
csallen
Define "no cows". There are plenty of animals we don't eat that continue to
exist.

~~~
whiddershins
Cows don't really exist in the wild. I guess we could have some in zoos but we
mostly keep animals around that have a purpose for us.

One could make the argument that evolutionarily speaking, being domesticated
(usually then eaten) by humans is the most reliable survival strategy for any
species.

------
tomcam
I admire the business idea... but, rapacious capitalist though I may be, it
fails my personal "would this business embarrass your children" test because
what unifies all of these products is that the quality of the cheese is
terrible IMHO.

~~~
dpark
What unifies all these products is the fact that they are mass produced. If
you want to sell a pizza to everyone in America and you want them all to taste
the same, you start to value consistency in your inputs.

I love to get pizza from some of the smaller pizzerias near me occasionally. I
don't love that the cheese breaks sometimes, leaving me with a watery,
ricotta-like mess on top of my pizza. I don't love that the crust is sometimes
too thin and gets soggy or tears, or that the crust is occasionally burned in
spots. This doesn't happen with Pizza Hut. Whatever else, they're consistent.

Personally, I also think that the cheese on a Pizza Hut pizza is just fine. If
you're buying Pizza Hut or Papa John's, you're not looking for an old-world
artisan experience. I don't want buffalo mozzarella on a delivery pizza.

~~~
clort
Why not? I mean, buffalo mozzarella is pretty nice right? Are you saying you
don't want food you can appreciate?

~~~
cynicalbastard
yeah sorry, not everyone's a liquid millionaire and can eat buffalo mozzarella
whenever they please.

we'll try to work harder and make more money, to be more like you, so we can
have excellent gourmand-level taste 24/7.

------
salemh
Anyone parse this sentence for me?

*Instead, he hired Lester Kielsmeier, who had run a cheese factory in Wisconsin only to find out that it was sold during his stint in the Air Force during World War II, because his dad believed he'd been killed in action. "When Lester came, I went downtown to the junkyard and I bought a couple bigger cheese vats to make it look like we were really in the business," Leprino says.

Leprino's dad thought Lester Kielsmeier died in WWII, or?

~~~
bzbarsky
Lester's dad thought Lester had been killed. He was presumably the executor
for Lester's estate, which was liquidated (e.g. the cheese factory was sold).

------
threepipeproblm
These are precisely the 3 pizza joints I cannot convince my room mate to order
from. I guess he doesn't like the secret billionaire cheese.

EDIT: Not sure why this is being downvoted. Analysis of the mass market pizza
industry as a race to the bottom, in terms of ingredient quality, is an old
idea. Couldn't the secrecy, fake differentiation of leading megacorps, and low
quality cheese be connected? Are we supposed to be impressed at this way of
making money?

------
blazespin
He was private because his buyers wanted it that way. Do they really want
everyone knowing they use the same cheese? I wonder what changed for him to
come out like this.

~~~
theDoug
They use the same cheese company but the story makes it clear that they do not
use the same cheese. Each company has its own product tailored to their needs.

------
kensai
Punchline: combine science with sales! ;)

~~~
Safety1stClyde
Sales and engineering are the two pillars of the Conjoined Triangles of
Success.

~~~
Angostura
I presume there must be at least 6 pillars?

~~~
gjm11
Just the four.
[http://conjoinedtriangles.com/](http://conjoinedtriangles.com/)

[EDITED to add: For the avoidance of doubt, yes it's a spoof.]

~~~
vinceguidry
There are only two pillars. He didn't give a name for the lateral connectors.

~~~
gjm11
I quote, from that very web page: "The four pillars of CToS (pronounced see-
to-ess) are Growth, Sales, Engineering and Manufacturing."

~~~
vinceguidry
The whole thing is from the Silicon Valley TV show. I'm fairly sure that the
two pillars are Sales and Engineering, but you're making me actually go watch
Season Three all over again to find out if Barker referred to Growth and
Manufacturing as pillars too. YouTube clips on that particular part of the
series are sparse.

Edit: Yep, Barker refers to Engineering and Sales as the _two_ pillars of
success in S03E02, and Growth as the "foundation" of the CToS. Compromise is
the "shared hypotenuse". Jack was fired before they could discuss
Manufacturing.

------
nodesocket
Thank god for the Willy Wonka of cheese.

------
deepnotderp
Wait, what's the "technology" that's being talked about in this cheese? Isn't
it just normal cheese? Am I missing something here or is this artificial faux
cheese?

~~~
dpark
Cheese production doesn't lack technology just because it's a familiar
product. There are hundreds if not thousands of types of cheese. What
distinguishes them is partly the dairy origin, but also largely the techniques
used to produce them. Just looking at mozzarella, there are hundreds of
different mozzarella cheeses on the market. They are not identical. Being able
to consistently produce a mozzarella that has certain attributes requires
tight control of a process that starts with an inconsistent output. What
temperature do you process at? When does it change? When do you add rennet?
How do you separate whey from the curds? How long do you age? etc. All of this
is tech.

~~~
jaclaz
To be picky, it's (good or bad tasting, _de giustibus non dispoutandum est_ )
not "mozzarella" but just "cheese for pizza".

~~~
metaphor
The distinction is irrelevant to the point made by the parent. That it's
simply _just_ "cheese for pizza" does not negate the fact that significant
process tech is leveraged when manufacturing a product of strict quality and
consistency at scale.

~~~
jaclaz
Sure, no doubt that tech and a strict control on production and ingredients is
needed, just like any industrial product, and evidently they are very good at
both, I was just referring to the "just looking at mozzarella" part. A large
number of cheeses called mozzarella on the market are very different from
mozzarella and most shouldn't be even called so.

------
faragon
Buffalo milk cheese is amazing for pizzas (after you have the pizza cooked,
put a bit of buffalo milk cheese on top).

------
homero
I swear it was government cheese caves

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danjoc
mom_i_posted_it_again.jpg

[https://hn.algolia.com/?query=Billionaire%20Cheese%20Pizza](https://hn.algolia.com/?query=Billionaire%20Cheese%20Pizza)

------
hobarrera
I find it disgusting to think that such a horrible industry that pillars on
exploiting sentient animals up to the point of their death from exhaustion
handles so Billions.

It's even sadder how people seem not to care at all, and are okay with all the
torture and mutilation that goes behind the milk/cheese industry if they've
something tasty in front of them.

~~~
slfnflctd
You're gonna have a hard enough time getting people to not bitterly attack you
for even merely suggesting it might be better for everyone if they ate a
little less meat.

Going after dairy is an absolute non-starter (unless maybe you're talking only
to vegetarians). I highly recommend sticking with targets that might actually
be achievable in your lifetime without requiring the complete collapse of
global civilization.

~~~
hobarrera
The dairy industry is one of the most brutal and soulless ones there is. I
don't know what you'd call a "starter" if that isn't.

I also fail to see why this would "collapse global civilization". The fact
that there's a huge industry behind this in some countries doesn't make it
critical. The world economy wouldn't change that much IF these vanished
(people would just consume something else).

~~~
slfnflctd
> people would just consume something else

Yeah... this is the problem right here. The biggest issues facing our species
and our planet boil down to one simple thing: the majority of the human race
is too selfish, shortsighted, stupid and stubborn to change even the smallest
aspects of their destructive behavior.

I mostly agree with you, the reason I said eliminating dairy is a 'non-
starter' is entirely about how difficult it is to get fellow humans to upgrade
their life choices. That was my whole point. This is also why I half-jokingly
mentioned a civilization collapse as the sole way to 'fix' this, because it is
only after the nukes have gone off and things have gone all to hell worldwide
(and dairy is no longer available) that you will get people to stop eating
cheese and ice cream. Outside of complete dictatorial control over a
population closed off from the rest of the planet, they will keep consuming
dairy until they cannot. It's sad and pathetic, but that's nature of the human
beast.

