Foodstuff, Latvia, Markets and Companies, USA

"Everything here is upside-down. This is the richest country with the worst eating habits. Rich people are thin, poor people - fat. The food is better in the cities, and worse in the country," said Melngailis in an interview with the business portal Nozare.lv.

Melngailis became convinced of the healthy properties of Latvian rye bread from his own experience. "When I starting selling rye bread, I ate it for breakfast and as an afternoon snack and I lost about ten pounds in weight. That was not deliberate, but simply because this bread is nourishing and does not fatten you up," said the professor.

Melngailis and his business partner founded the company Black Rooster Food in 2009, and every week the company orders around 150 kilograms of rye bread from a bakery in New York's Brooklyn district. The firm then distributes the bread to delicatessens in and around Boston and New York, and also sells directly through the Internet.

The business makes a few tens of thousands of dollars a year, and Melngailis stressed that his full-time job is still as a professor and researcher. However, the professor sees the possibility that this type of bread could become more popular in the future.

"In 1967, when I returned to the U.S. from my studies in Europe, no-one recognized French baguettes. But after some time they became a popular type of bread," Melngailis notes, adding that with a bit of work and the right marketing strategy, he believes Latvian rye bread could win a significant market share in the U.S.