A Mouth-Watering Fatboy
By Alba Cid

     ‚ÄúEveryone loves a Fatboy!‚Äù That is the slogan for a new product in Somerville,  Fatboy marinade.  Karl Dias, a local resident, gave the Somerville News a flavor of what he and his partner, Anthony Mello, have gone through to start the new company at the April 7 Somerville News contributors meeting.
      Dias said the marinade is best when added to beef, pork, chicken or fish, and allowed to sit for several hours (or a few days), before cooking. 
      Dias said he and his partner, who was trained as a chef, cooked together informally for friends and family for years before coming up with the marinade two years ago.

     Dias said the dishes they made with their marinade became so popular with their friends and family that one Christmas they decided to make a large batch, bottle it, and give it away as presents.   
     ‚ÄúAnd everyone loved it,‚Äù said Dias. Due to the success, Diaz and Mello decided to try to sell it to the public.
     ‚ÄúWe didn‚Äôt know anything about packaged foods‚Ķbut now, look at this!‚Äù he said, holding up one of the bottles of his marinade.  Fatboy started selling at about 24 small stores in the New England area, as well as on a website selling seasonings, including barbecue sauces and marinades (www.insanechicken.com). 
     The partners also went to numerous area events, such as the Boston Gift Show, Boston Beer Show, and the Women‚Äôs Show (Riverside), where they sold many bottles of Fatboy, he said. 
     Recently, he said, Stop & Shop picked up the marinade for distribution in over 300 Stop & Shop stores in New England, as well as 200 Giant Foods outlets in the Mid-Atlantic States.
     In the beginning, the two partners approached one of  Mello‚Äôs friends, who made bottled sauces in a Union Square facility. They began making large batches of the marinade and bottling it there with some employees. Dias spoke of a hectic Saturday where he and Mello did test batches to ‚Äúget the flavor just right‚Äù in large quantities, and then sent the sauce to the UMass food lab to get the nutritional information for the bottles.  The making of the marinade is now contracted out to that company. 
     Dias said it took the partners a while to come up with the label design and colors.  But the name?  ‚ÄúLook at my partner and I‚Ķwe‚Äôre fat!‚Äù Dias said with a big grin on his face, and laughed.
Dias and Mello have full-time jobs, in addition to their marinade business.  However, Dias said they spend ‚Äúmore time on the marinade than at the full-time job.‚Äù 
     Dias and his partner are working on the marketing of Fatboy, and on making new products, including honey mustard and hot marinades.  In fact, he said ‚Äúlook forward to honey mustard, ‚Äòcause it‚Äôs really good.‚Äù  In the future, he said that he wants to ‚Äúleverage the success that we‚Äôve had into the prepared food aisle,‚Äù and make ready-made foods for the public, because ‚Äúwhat took me two years to do, would now take me two months!‚Äù
      The company is entirely self-funded, and now, with the next shipment to Stop & Shop, Dias said he expects it to be profitable.  You can find them at www.fatboymm.com, and now, at a Stop & Shop near you.