Something occurred to the Montanos after they had invested heavily in the Dicho concept: What if a patent or trademark established by others predated their confection?
Por pedir, nada se pierde. (You lose nothing by asking.) After considerable research, a patent attorney gave them the go-ahead and established the brand name; they were in the clear. El que llega primero, muele primero. (Who arrives first, grinds first.)
As first-time food producers, the Montanos had a lot to learn. They hired a nutritional scientist to establish the nutrition facts to be printed on the side of each box. They researched "food grade paper," required by the Food and Drug Administration for products of this nature.
Finally, they tested different strengths of plastic before coming up with the right wrapping grade.
The performance group that took the cookies on the road, Verbobala Spoken Video, reported that in such places as Boston or Vancouver, Canada, they had to explain what dichos were. "But when we started to explain them in San Antonio or Austin," says group member Logan Phillips, "people would interrupt us - 'Yeah, yeah, we know.' They'd immediately got the idea."
As for Freddy Monares, the East L.A. food broker bringing Dichos near you soon, he relates personally. "Every person you talk to has at least a hundred dichos in their life," he says with some whimsy.
"Right now [the Montanos] are selling 200 cases a month. My initial goal is for them to sell 2,000 a month. They'll be baby-sat by me to make it grow. At a certain point dichos will be hard to stop."
Salud e alegria crian belleza. (Health and happiness create beauty.)
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food@latimes.com
