James & Jeff Atto

What is Atto & Sons?

Atto & Sons is a food business that creates and sells all natural, nutritious food products that are influenced by Mediterranean flavors. We offer curried picked vegetables, also known as Torshi in Chaldean, roasted lentils, and fresh vegetable relish.

We are Chaldean and our recipes come from our grandfather who was the cook of the household. Our curry is a family blend that took him years to develop. After he passed away we craved his recipes so much we finally started making them on our own. Now we are bringing his homemade recipes to everyone.

What was your experience in Build?

Build was the next logical step for us. We enjoyed the guest speakers, many of whom are first hand experts in their fields and we found it very helpful to have direct face time with them. We loved the class dynamic and found that we all had good ideas for one another. So many times people would say “I never thought of that” after getting feedback from their peers.

 

“Build Bazaar was a huge eye opener for us because it was our first public sales opportunity outside of our family and friends.”

 

What are your recent developments?

After Build we continued to develop our business by reaching out to mentors and building our networks. Build Bazaar was a huge eye opener for us because it was our first public sales opportunity outside of our family and friends. It was great to see people’s reactions to tasting our food and it reaffirmed that we were doing something right. We also joined Foodlab, which we heard about through Build. We recently launched a Kiva loan, which we funded in under 24 hours, the shortest funding period for a loan in Detroit. It was a very pleasant surprise! We plan to use the funds to invest in materials and packaging, building out our website, and getting licensing. Andy Kopietz of Good Done Daily, who was a guest speaker in our class, also did our brand and logo identity.

What is your long-term vision?

We’d like to transition into more of a distribution model in grocery stores, restaurants, and delis. We want to expand our partnerships and carve out a segment of the food industry for supplementary foods – those that can be used as a topping or side with many different types of food. There’s no one way to eat our products – we encourage people to get creative with it and give us feedback on how they ate it!