School Lunch and Popcorn

South Louisiana is famous for its food. There is seemingly no end
to the number of new and interesting restaurants that capitalize
on this truly great aspect of our local culture.


But restaurants and caterers aren’t the only ones in the culinary
sector. Foodie entrepreneurs in Baton Rouge are coming up with
all sorts of new products and services using their creative
culinary abilities to fill a gap or carve a new niche.


Take, for example, Mary Joy Fasullo and Ebony McAlister.


Mary Joy is Marketing and Communications Strategist for Focus
Foods, a Baton Rouge-based company that provides meals to
schools, nursing homes, disaster victims and residential
customers.


Focus Foods started in 2019 as a network of former food truck
owners who began manufacturing easy-to-prepare, frozen meals. It
has grown to now provide 30,000 meals a week for K-12 students
across seven parish school districts, and operates in partnership
with agencies like Meals on Wheels and nursing homes to provide
meals to seniors across 11 parishes.


Since 2019, Focus Foods has produced and delivered more than 25
million meals. And it recently announced plans to expand to a new
larger warehouse space that will enable the company to expand its
retail food and co-packaging business and expand into new markets
out of state.


Mary Joy joined the company at the beginning of 2022 and works
with her dad, who is well-known marketing executive and band
leader Ned Fasullo. 


Ebony McAllister, along with her two young daughters Bailey and
Harper, founded and owns Posh Pop Gourmet Popcorn, a boutique
popcorn concept.


When it comes to fancy popcorn, butter, cheese and caramel didn’t
go far enough, so the McAlister trio began creating ambitious and
delicious popcorn flavors such as Caramel Café Noir; Praline
Paradise, and Coco Crunch.


The McAlisters make their product at the LSU AgCenter Food
Incuabator, which in 2021, expanded and rebranded as foodii, and
sell it at farmers markets and special events around the Capital
Region. 


Out to Lunch is recorded live over lunch at Mansurs on the
Boulevard. You can find photos from this show by Erik Otts at
itsbatonrouge.la.


Check out more lunchtime conversation about Baton Rouge snack
food with this edition of Out to Lunch Baton Rouge, Super Cheesy,
about a miraculous machine that delivers a piping hot pizza to
order in 20 seconds and Baton Rouge's on gourmet cheeseboards.


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