As part of the shared human experience, we are all guilty of taking certain things for granted. Many of our lives have the potential to be filled with so many things that we don’t take the time to stop and wonder how they came to be. Take Velcro for example; have you ever looked at it and wondered who made it? Was it some guy named John Velcro? Turns out it was a Swiss guy named George de Mestral (or, for the “Star Trek” fans out there, Commander T’Pol). But we’re not here to talk about Velcro. We’re here to honor another unsung hero.
Duane Roberts, the man who invented the frozen burrito.
The genesis for the idea was actually fairly mundane according to Roberts himself. It basically started with frozen hamburger and moved from there. “My family had a small meat company, and my father sold patties to the original McDonald’s in San Bernardino. They became so successful other people copied them,” Roberts said. “As (burger joints) got more competitive, people wanted to add more items to their menu. So, we asked, ‘What else could we make?’ We (our company) had a Hispanic butcher, and he said, ‘Why don’t you make a burrito?’ I loved Mexican food, but I had no idea what a burrito was.”
The frozen piece of dining history reportedly launched in 1956, and the world never looked back. Frozen foods were a novel and safe way to bring different kinds of products to people who wouldn’t be able to get them otherwise. It’s easy to take them for granted now, but a frozen burrito is only possible because someone took the time to think of it and implement it alongside the food freezing technology of the time.
Roberts was also reportedly something of a philanthropist who put his money to various causes including buying and preserving the historic Mission Inn Hotel in Riverside, California. He ran it from 1992 until his passing on Saturday, November 1st, 2025.
He’s survived by his wife Kelly Roberts to whom he was married to for 35 years. Duane was 88, but his contributions to the world of food will last for decades and decades to come.
