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JUNE 5, 2008
Love Street Treats
BY MELISSA MEINZER
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Jon-Michael Kerestes says he divides food into two circles: things that are
good, healthful and life-giving, and things that are not. So if you're after
luscious chocolate treats, why not use only ingredients from the first circle?
That's what Kerestes has been up to for more than a year with Love Street Living
Foods, his line of vegan, organic and mostly raw treats. (The "raw"
refers to food that's not just uncooked but also minimally processed, so that
enzymes in the ingredients remain active and beneficial. Some of his foods use
maple syrup, which disqualifies them from being raw.)
Cocoa from Ecuador, agave from Mexico and maca, a high-protein root, from Peru
... Kerestes brings them all together in his facility on the South Side to make
gorgeous fudge, chocolate bars, and chocolate and coconut-chocolate spreads.
He's wary of revealing the precise location of his workshop for fear customers
will show up hoping to make retail purchases, but Love Street products are available
at the East End Food Co-Op, Whole Foods and Oh Yeah!, the ice-cream shop in
Shadyside. They're also distributed and sold in New York, California and other
locations nationwide. Until January, Kerestes made every product by hand and
did the shipping himself. But as business has grown, he's had to do some outsourcing
-- albeit with individuals whom he carefully selected and personally trained.
Over an energizing snack of tart goldenberries, rich, velvety dried mangoes
and Spanish olives -- all current or future Love Street products -- the Pittsburgh
native explains how he went from earning a degree at the Air Force Academy to
being a one-man movement for delicious foods that also happen to be wildly healthy.
"It was the food that did it," he says. "The body responds to
good food." During a stint in Los Angeles, where raw food is more readily
available, "I spent a while eating raw and realized how powerful it was."
And it's the food that is his best marketing tool. Kerestes says he's won over
cynics at taste tests at the Co-op and the Farmers@Firehouse market in the Strip
District. The first merchant to carry his line, a shop in Manhattan, started
selling his products wrapped in tinfoil immediately after he brought them in
for a taste test.
The name Love Street Living Foods, Kerestes says, came to him while eating
fabulous food in Los Angeles prepared by an inspiring chef: "It's kind
of Garden of Eden. If you lived on Love Street, this is what the food would
taste like."
www.lovestreetlivingfoods.com
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