Our Story

Roli Roti was founded by Thomas Odermatt, a third-generation Swiss butcher. Growing up in his family’s award-winning butcher shop, Thomas learned his family’s secrets of succulent, tender rotisserie. From his father, Otto, a ‘Metzgermeister’ or master butcher, he learned the importance of using the right cuts for the right purpose, and of choosing only select, free range meats raised by trusted family farms. From his mother, Maria, he learned the family’s recipes for savory rotisserie, a specialty their shop prepared for customers on Saturdays.

“I am first a farmer, second a chef.”

— Thomas Odermatt, founder

Thomas earned his master’s degree in organic farming from Strickhof/ETH, Zürich, then he moved to the US to continue his education at UC Berkeley. He was captivated by the local, gourmet food scene developing in Berkeley. It was then that America’s first gourmet rotisserie food truck, Roli Roti, was born. What started as a single truck in 2002, Roli Roti is now a fleet of six that roams the Bay Area daily slinging its famed rotisserie chickens and porchetta sandwiches. And why the name Roli Roti? Well, it’s named for literally being a rolling rotisserie.

Feeding thousands of loyal customers every week, their feedback showed Thomas that people appreciated Thomas’ take on food—simple yet meticulously  made. Thomas was inspired to nourish people outside of his trucks in only the ways he knew how.

In 2015, Thomas created his first retail product: Butcher’s Bone Broth. An organic fresh bone broth that—like his truck—embodies Thomas’ approach to feeding others: putting in all of the manpower and hours to create food that is healthy, delicious, and satisfying.

Today, Roli Roti’s retail line includes bone broth and sous vide products. Sous vide is a cooking technique in which vacuum-sealed ingredients are cooked slowly in a precise temperature-controlled circulating water bath. The result is a delicious, moist and tender meat, perfectly cooked through.

Whether it is spending hours perfectly cooking a chicken on a rotisserie spit or taking a full day to simmer a bottle of bone broth, Roli Roti aims to empower people to make more delicious and nutritious food at home without putting in the time or the effort—we’ve taken care of that for you.