Dipping for new idea leads to edible success

LAFAYETTE  – Inspiration can strike at the strangest of times. Just ask Mallory Kates.

While peddling her bike down the Pacific coast in June of 2005, Kates decided she wanted to leave her career in the corporate world and start a food company. Little did she know that little more than a year, with the help of some big players in the natural foods industry, her dream would be realized with the launch of the Chello Foods line of gourmet dips and spreads.

“I was on this long bike ride from San Francisco to Los Angeles, and I’m thinking and thinking,…