Frozen burrito biz lands believers, backers.

• Author: Taylor, Mike

Denver is already the cradle of the giant burrito, with Chipotle, Qdoba, Chez Jose, Bocaza and Illegal Pete's all emerging here in the early 1990s. Boulder's Phil Anson aims to make this the mecca of the frozen burrito, too.

Less than a year after securing financial backing, Anson's natural and organic EVOL Burritos can be found in 1,000 stores. His 6,000-square-foot Boulder plant is churning out 20,000 burritos a day. By year's end Anson expects to be in 2,500 stores nationwide.

"Ours is a very similar consumer to those (giant burrito) brands, but it's a different usage," says Anson, 31. "We're looking to capture those people who want a premium burrito experience for a completely different usage occasion: Running out the door, you've got your cup of coffee and your burrito and you're on the road."

Originally from Los Angeles, Anson studied photojournalism at the University of Denver while working nights as a chef. He's also an avid rock climber, and his struggle to make it in the food industry has resembled an inch-by-inch ascent up an unforgiving rock face, starting in 2001 when it occurred to him that he might be able to sell burritos to climbers entering Boulder's Eldorado Canyon.

"I tried it a few times, and it didn't work," Anson says. "And then I took them out to construction sites. That didn't work either. People were totally confused--this white kid who spoke Spanish trying to sell them burritos."

Anson tried selling at sporting events and other venues. "It was pitiful," he says. "But I ended up at the Eldorado Corner Market. I saw a couple other local brands of packaged burritos. I went back to my house and whipped up a few ink-jet labels and some burritos and brought them over and built a little price list and made my first sale."

Anson eventually built his Phil's Fresh Foods brand of sandwiches, burritos and dips to annual revenues of $ 1.5 million. "But it was still sort of a one-man show," he says. "It was brutal. I pulled all-nighters. I slept on bags of pinto beans. I basically devoted my entire 20s to this business."

He wanted to take his business to the next level, but by the time he figured out how to pitch his business plan to angel investors and venture-capital firms, it was too late.

"The economy was totally shot out," he says. "The era of these three-and four- and five-times revenue acquisitions in natural-foods brands had kind of subsided."

Or so he thought. Enter Brendan...