Packaged, Fresh, Fully Cooked Falafel

When Greg Bukuras and his wife, Michelle, couldn’t find any decent takeout crab rangoon, they figured other people encountered the same problem, and decided to make the wonton-like appetizer in their kitchen and then sell it to the rest of the world.

The idea took off and, 14 years later, their specialty food company ORC Foods Inc. sells 20 varieties of frozen appetizers in 7,500 individual grocery and club stores. Greg notes that if his bacon-wrapped scallops and filet mignon helped propel the frozen appetizer industry over the past ten years, there’s got to be another untapped market to go after now.

Enter Falafel Republic, the company’s new line of fresh, fully cooked falafel. Most Americans don’t have the cooking skills or time to prepare falafel from scratch. But adding a package of ready-to-heat falafel balls to one’s grocery list is an easy way to stock a protein-packed staple that can quickly be spun into a full meal.

The meatball-sized balls, made from a vegetarian mixture of chickpeas, fava beans, onions, parsley and Mediterranean spices, are gluten-free, dairy-free and soy-free. They’re fully cooked, so it only takes about 25 seconds to take them from refrigerator to microwave to table. They can be served traditionally—in a pita or wrap, with lettuce, tomato, onions and yogurt sauce—or adapted to fit individual tastes. The company removes the guesswork by posting a dozen simple recipes, like Greek falafel, falafel marinara pasta and Texas falafel, on its website. The falafel comes in traditional and garlic flavor and is sold at clubs like Costco as well as natural food stores in Los Angeles, Chicago and the northeast. Each 9-ounce pack (9 balls) retails for $5.99 and each 32-ounce bundle pack (32 balls) is sold for $9.89. —Kara Mayer Robinson

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