"I try to keep ahead of the timing," Paulucci says. "Wherever there's a microwave,
I believe we should have our product."
Paulucci has started about 70 companies all together--some more successful than others. He began his Chun King business in 1944 with a $2,500
loan and sold it to R.J. Reynolds less than two decades later for $63 million. He is perhaps best known for his namesake Jeno's pizza rolls, which he sold to General Mills in 1985 for about $150
million.
Charles M. Harper, former chief executive of RJR Nabisco and head of ConAgra Foods Inc., says Paulucci is his definition of an entrepreneur. "He's rough, he's plainspoken and a very direct guy."
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