Garlic dreams for a Clifton Park family of entrepreneurs

By JENNIFER GISH, Staff writer
First published in print: Thursday, January 14, 2010
 

Foti Zorbas used to make big batches of his garlic-laden dip when anyone in the family got the sniffles, and he slathered it on everything they ate.

The potent family recipe and traditional Greek food always knocked out whatever bug wanted to nest within their systems. And as a vegan, Zorbas used the condiment in place of butter and mayonnaise on most everything, even when he was feeling well.
As the economy hit a downturn and his construction work slowed, Zorbas started to think about how that traditional family recipe could someday become a family business for his three children. And so Gar-La-La was born.

Zorbas and his wife, Colleen, started the business Zorbas Natural Food a little more than a year ago, and Gar-La-La has been its featured product. The nondairy, gluten-free dip/spread hybrid is made primarily from healthy doses of raw garlic and potato. It contains a simple list of ingredients and comes in three varieties -- original, roasted red pepper and horseradish dill.

Some of the garlic used in the product is grown in the couple's Clifton Park backyard, and they say they use local ingredients whenever they're available.

Product development took about a year and a half, Zorbas says.

The Zorbas family, after enlisting the help of Cornell Cooperative Extension, got all the proper licensing and found some commercial kitchens where they could make batches of Gar-La-La. During the development phase, Colleen says her husband became like "a chemist" in the kitchen, sniffing fresh herbs and asking friends and family to decide whether there was too much garlic or not quite enough.

"It was scary at first because no one has ever tasted anything like that before," Zorbas says. "There's times when I'd be sitting at a festival, and I'd be thinking, 'What am I doing? Why am I doing all this work? I'm wasting my time.' ... It's like a big experiment. You know when you can picture the possibility of something? I could just picture it."

They now sell Gar-La-La at the monthly Ballston Spa Farmers Market, Saturdays at the Saratoga Farmers Market and in the dairy section of the Price Chopper in Clifton Park (at Route 146 and Plank Road). Given that garlic is one of those foods that people really love or really don't, the Zorbas family typically gains either a new loyal customer or a "no thanks."

Some customers say they love garlic, but given their sensitive digestive systems, garlic doesn't love them. Surprisingly, kids, despite the intense garlic flavor of Gar-la-la, seem to be its biggest fans, Colleen says.

"Kids don't care if they have garlic breath," she says.

The Gar-La-La the family sells is milder than the batch Zorbas whips up whenever someone in the family comes down with a cold, but it's got enough garlic flavor to still be true to his Greek heritage. At least he thinks so.

"My mother actually tells me that it's too weak," Zorbas says.