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Chance encounter spurs big idea for local entrepreneur

Art Roldan was sitting and enjoying a lettuce wrapped hamburger in a local In-N-Out restaurant when inspiration struck him.

"I sat down and started to eat, and this gal sits in front of me, I don't know her from Adam, but she was a very nice lady," Roldan said. "I said, 'So, do you eat these a lot?' She says, 'You know, I love these lettuce wraps and I would eat them every day. The problem is once you take a bite, they fall apart and the condiments go all over and I've ruined my blouse, so I have to really be careful.'"

She said that it would be nice if a farmer could grow lettuce in the shape of a bun. Roldan said, "Yeah, in a perfect world," and the two parted ways, he said.

Then Roldan started thinking. As an Atkins diet devotee, he loved lettuce wraps of all kinds, he said; why couldn't he try to make a bun out of lettuce?

"I'm one of those guys that I've just always worked for myself," he said. "I've created all the different businesses you could think of from sports memorabilia to construction companies."

And he said, he is really good with his hands.

"So, on the way home I thought, 'You know, I could make a bun. I don't know how, but I think I could make a lettuce bun,'" Roldan said. "After experimenting for three or four months with wooden molds, metal molds and all different kind of molds, I finally had that 'Eureka' moment."

He said he was alone in the kitchen when he accidently dropped one of his prototype lettuce buns.

"The bun went rolling down my kitchen floor, just rolling," Roldan said. "So, I was really excited, but there was nobody to high-five. My wife was upstairs asleep, and she was the first person I told."

That's the official moment that Pro-Team Buns was born.

"I would love to tell you I'm a genius and this is rocket science," Roldan said. "But anybody could have figured out what I did through trial and error."

Roldan, 62, who was raised in Riverside and grew up in Southern California, had created something he thought was pretty special, so he guarded the secret closely.

"If I started showing this to the world, somebody with a little bit of money would take this and run with it, and I'd have nothing. So, I contacted a good buddy of mine that I had a lot of respect for," Roldan said. "As I shared it with him, the first thing he suggested was, 'You know, you got to get this patented.'"

Roldan contacted Knobbe Martens in Irvine.

"Knobbe Martens are the most respected, most prestigious patent attorneys in the country," Roldan said. "They're rated No. 1 in the United States. They are very expensive, very prestigious. But in the world of patents, you get what you pay for."

Roldan said the attorneys lit up when he showed them the bun.

"They're looking at it. They're going, 'Wow, is this what I think it is?'" he said. "I go, 'Well, if you think it looks like a lettuce burger bun, and that's what I have.'"

Roldan said that during the course of the investigation into obtaining a patent for his product, there had been only between five and 10 attempts to create such a product in the last 100 years to file for a patent in the category. His chances were strong. And it wasn't long until he got his U.S. patent.

"There's something deeper that a patent gives you," Roldan said. "First of all, when the government of the United States gives you a patent, it's a monopoly. It's a monopoly on the item, and if you filed patents and other countries, it's the same thing."

So far, Roldan holds patents in 61 countries and is expected to get more. He wants to have 100 countries covered when he's done.

"I said, well, my goal is I want to take it to the world, not just United States but the world," he said. "I will tell you in a year and a half, I've raised about $740,000 and pretty much all that money went to paying for patents and trademarks. And that kind of is backward for most businesses the way they would typically start out."

Protecting his product is what is important to Roldan, he said.

"Here's the most important thing a patent gives you, it gives you the power to deny anybody of making the buns," he said. "That's really the power. It's the power of denial. So, this is why patents cost so much."

Protection is one thing, but Roldan is so guarded with his product because he believes it can change the world for a lot of people.

"I know we're onto something big, and hopefully the world benefits from it because that's really what it's all about," he said. "Money's great, but you know the idea that people are afflicted with celiac disease, people that have diabetes, people that are gluten intolerant, they can start eating sandwiches again like they did when they were kids."

The best thing about the product, he said, was that it's made from lettuce, which is grown all over the world, and is inexpensive, so he can keep costs down for the consumer and restaurants.

He said his patents include several different shapes of buns, as well as different varieties of lettuce and other leafy greens – even cannabis.

"I'm told there are 34,000 McDonald's, 44,000 Subways around the world, so the infrastructure is in place for us," Roldan said. "All we have to do is get production down to a reasonable price, and they're going to sell in the United States."

Currently, Roldan is in the process of evaluating investment deals to raise a little more capital before he can start mass producing the product. Interested investors can contact Roldan through his website, http://www.proteambuns.com.

"There are 70 billion hot dogs and hamburgers sold every year," he said. "Seventy billion with a 'B.' If we could get just 1 percent of that, and you're looking pretty good. I believe this is going to, once we break out, if it's done right, I think if we get 5 percent of the market inside two years, and 10 percent inside five years, we're talking about massive, massive. It's massive."

So far, Roldan has his buns in a few local restaurants and is producing the buns at a local Siggy's location. Residents can find Pro-Team Buns at local community events and business mixers, giving away free hamburgers to anyone willing to try to the product.

So far, he said, it's been a hit.

"This is going to happen. It's gonna happen because people are aware of how healthy it is to start substituting things for bread," he said. "Hopefully we lead the way."

 

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