That\u2019s some big cheese.<\/p>\n
A Staten Island man claims his dad was the true mozzarella master behind the famed Polly-O cheese brand and has demanded $1.5 billion in damages from three companies he claims \u201cstole\u201d the \u201cgood will\u201d of the business, including mega food corporation Kraft Heinz.<\/p>\n
\u201cKraft bought the factories. They never paid my father for the goodwill \u2014 the reputation, the authenticity, the Brooklyn origin \u2014 that he bought in 1967,\u201d Joseph Failla said in a Brooklyn Federal Court lawsuit.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey attached it to their bird-branded cheese, sold it as real Brooklyn, 1899 heritage. All lies,\u201d he said in court papers.<\/p>\n
Joseph Failla, of Staten Island, with a photo of the old Columbia Street store. J.C. Rice for NY Post<\/p>\n
The company which eventually became the famed Polly-O brand of mozzarella and string cheeses, with its well-known logo featuring a yellow bird in a chef\u2019s hat, began in 1899 in Coney Island, when Giuseppe Pollio launched his Columbia Street store. <\/p>\n
Failla\u2019s dad, Vincent, a native of Red Hook, worked for Pollio beginning when he was just 15, his son said. <\/p>\n
\u201cHe became the face of the company \u2014 they even called him Vinny Pollio,\u201d his son recalled. \u00a0<\/p>\n
Vincent Failla served for the US Army in Korea and when he returned, bought G. Pollio & Sons\u2019 store for $5,000, court records showed.<\/p>\n
The contract for the 1967 business deal, included in the lawsuit, shows Vincent Failla bought \u201call stock, inventory good will and fixtures,\u201d along with the trade name G. Pollio & Sons.<\/p>\n
He worked the store until the late 1970s, when his son said neighborhood decline coupled with a city sewer project forced its closure. Vincent Failla died in 2004, at age 75, his son said.<\/p>\n
While Joseph Failla, 64, acknowledged the Pollio family sold their factories to Kraft separately in 1986 for an undisclosed sum \u2014 he said the situation stinks worse than sour milk.<\/p>\n
Vincent Failla bought the store in 1967, along with the name \u201cG. Pollio & Sons\u201d and the company\u2019s \u201cgoodwill,\u201d according to a contract. Courtesy of Joseph Failla<\/p>\n
Joseph Failla said his family deserves compensation from the Polly-O brand. Courtesy of Joseph Failla<\/p>\n
\u201cThey sold the factories, the mechanics of the company \u2014 and my father bought the heart of the company,\u201d said Joseph Failla, who is acting as his own lawyer in the lawsuit.<\/p>\n
Kraft later sold the Polly-O brand to Belgioioso Cheese in 2021, also for an undisclosed sum, when the product had $177 million in annual sales. <\/p>\n
\u201cMy father got nothing,\u201d Joseph Failla lamented. <\/p>\n
\u201cThe marble storefront they show? That\u2019s 238 Columbia Street store is what my father bought in 1967. They never owned it. They just stole it, called it history, made billions from it and never paid us a dime.\u201d<\/p>\n
Kraft Heinz, Belgioioso and French dairy manufacturer Lactalis \u2014 which briefly owned the brand \u2014 did not immediately return messages seeking comment.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"That\u2019s some big cheese. A Staten Island man claims his dad was the true mozzarella master behind the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":202004,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[4046,2931,2850,57,9,56,63,65,64,58],"class_list":{"0":"post-202003","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-new-york-city","8":"tag-cheese","9":"tag-italian-food","10":"tag-lawsuits","11":"tag-metro","12":"tag-new-york","13":"tag-ny","14":"tag-nyc","15":"tag-nyc-headlines","16":"tag-nyc-news","17":"tag-us-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/202003","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=202003"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/202003\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/202004"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=202003"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=202003"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=202003"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}