Leprino Foods history

After graduating high school in 1956, he started working with his father full-time at his market.

In 1958, after larger chain grocery stores had forced the Leprino market to close, the Leprino Foods cheese empire started with $615.

Inspired by the 1964 World's Fair in New York, Leprino traveled to Japan to meet with scientists using milk proteins derived from whey to help the Japanese population grow taller.

Leprino's first coup came in 1968, when Pizza Hut was looking for a supplier that could help it cut costs while standardizing portions.

Helped by his young son, Jim, the family-owned, family-run business began to operate out of the family's home on 38th Avenue in Denver, a site it still occupied when Jim took over as chairman and chief executive officer of the company in 1972 upon Mike Leprino's death.

The company enjoyed approximately $248 million worth of sales as a distributor in 1983, 6.3 percent or $15 million of which came from its new Mexican food business.

The first key was something called "Quality Locked Cheese"--shredded and individually frozen portions--which Leprino introduced in 1986.

In 1988 the company added "quality locked" cheese, a frozen, free-flowing shredded form of mozzarella, which constituted its second major innovation.

In 1989 a new line of enhanced cheeses, including varieties of part-skim mozzarella that mimicked the taste, appearance, and melting properties of other cheeses, such as muenster or provolone blends, was added to Leprino Foods' line of offerings.

Leprino had similarly attempted to establish its presence in Europe in 1993, but plans to base its manufacturing operations in the Republic of Ireland were shot down when Irish dairy companies protested that the move would put too much pressure on milk supplies available for Irish cheese production.

Then, in 1994, in a sudden narrowing and focusing of operations, the company sold off both the assets and business of its restaurant supply distribution operation to International Multifoods Corporation, leaving it with only its cheese manufacturing business.

The new Leprino production unit, which was to have an initial capacity of 18,000 tons a year, was scheduled to begin operations in 1996.

The company hit the press in 1998 when a September report released by the Colorado Public Interest Research Group "Troubled Waters" placed it at the top of a list of corporate polluters discharging toxins into Colorado's streams.

While Leprino got rich, Kielsmeier — who came to work every day right until his death at 95 in 2012 — would have to content himself with being very well paid.