A Perrysburg food-service company will be acquiring five new high-tech ovens thanks to a low-interest loan of more than $205,000 from the Ohio Department of Development.

Extra Virgin Food Services, which prepares lunch for 3,800 private and charter school students and provides food service to other local companies, will use the loan to purchase new ovens that will permit the company to increase its capacity. The project will make it possible for the company to create at least two new full-time-equivalent positions and retain 32 existing jobs.

“Right now, we can’t grow with our current cooking capacity,” said Greg Rufty, the managing partner and chief operating officer of the company. “The new ovens will allow us to cook more and expand our client base. We’re going to add at least one van and driver. We will need more qualified hands in the kitchen. And we’re ramping up our sales department.”

Mr. Rufty predicted that the company would far surpass the two new full-time positions it promised in its loan application.

A local business expands

In addition to its school lunch business, Extra Virgin delivers lunch to employees of JE Dunn Construction Group who are working on a major project nearby. It has a contract to provide food service at the upcoming Toledo Air Show. It provides meals to a couple dozen regular corporate clients, including O-I Glass, Johns Manville, and The Andersons. It runs the Lamplight Cafe and Bakery in downtown Perrysburg and will soon be cooking meals for two inpatient and three outpatient detox facilities.

The company, which is incorporated under the name Maumee Valley Restaurant Group, was founded in 2012. Its first major contract was with Toledo Refining to run the company’s cafeteria. In that year, sales totaled only $250,000; today, annual revenue tops $4 million. Extra Virgin has 13 meal-delivery vans on the road every day.

The new ovens, which are due to be installed later this year, are manufactured by Rational AG and will be purchased from Burkett Restaurant Equipment and Supplies, a local Perrysburg vendor.

One of them can cook in multiple ways, including grilling, steaming, and smoking.

The other four can do pretty much anything, according to Randy Hansen, Extra Virgin’s president of culinary operations and a partner in the company.

“You can push a rack in with 40 pans of different foods in it and it will cook each pan at different times and temperatures,” he said. “It will remember how different foods are cooked. It takes the human error out of it, and you get a better product.”

The company currently utilizes convection ovens, two of which will be eliminated when the new ovens are installed.

One of the charter schools the company serves is the Toledo School for the Arts. Its food service director, Sue Sass, finds the Extra Virgin team very easy to work with.

“We have about 740 students here and we serve lunch to around 300 of them,” she said. “We’ve been with Extra Virgin for nine years. Not only do they provide us with lunches every day, but they also provide us with a salad bar.”

Ms. Sass especially appreciates the fact that Extra Virgin sees to it that all the meals they serve meet the requirements of the USDA’s national school lunch program.

“I don’t have to worry about that,” she said. “I know our meals qualify.”

Walking tacos, crispy chicken, and pizza Fridays are the most popular items among the student body.

A state program and the port authority

It was almost by chance that Mr. Rufty heard about the Ohio Department of Development’s Regional 166 Direct Loan program.

“A couple years ago, we did a presentation about the program at the Perrysburg Rotary,” said Jason Bartschy, the Toledo-Lucas County Port Authority’s director of financing programs. “Greg Rufty heard our talk and contacted us a year later. He invited us to come out and see what they were doing.”

Mr. Bartschy worked with Extra Virgin on its loan application. Once it was ready, the application was approved internally by the port authority and then submitted to the state. The loan was finally approved in February at the fixed rate of 3 percent for a term of 10 years, a significantly lower rate than the 7 percent and above currently charged by commercial banks.

“We’re looking to support business and employment growth in the region,” Mr. Bartschy said. 

He added that over the last two years, the port authority has held the records for both the number of 166 Direct Loans approved and their total dollar amount.

The loan program requires businesses to make the promised investment before the loan funds are released.

“We need to install some floor drains and do some electrical and gas upgrades first,” Mr. Rufty said. “When we complete the project and prove that we’ve paid for it, the state releases the loan funds. That allows us to preserve our working capital.”

Mr. Rufty believes that the state has the responsibility to help generate economic development.

“Economic development is the key to our state’s success,” he said. “We’re hugely dependent on manufacturing, but smaller and independent businesses are the cornerstones of communities. It’s nice that there’s a program for those companies to utilize.”

First Published March 21, 2025, 11:35 a.m.