California Businessman Duane Roberts, Father of the Frozen Burrito, Dies at 88

Duane Roberts didn’t know what a burrito was. He was in the beef business and sold patties to

McDonald’s. He’d never even seen a flour tortilla.

In his defense, he was hardly alone. In 1956, Mexican food had not yet become ubiquitous in the U.S. Neither had McDonald’s. But Americans were driving, cities were growing, and the fast-food industry was expanding to keep up. Roberts was working for his father, who owned Butcher Boy Products, a meat-processing business, and he was trying to come up with a new product that the company could sell to fast-food clients. But Roberts was stumped.