The deep dish pizza delivered to Seaton and Jill Smith last fall looked delicious, and the folks in the kitchen insisted it was gluten free. But the couple needed some more assurance.

Both Smiths suffer from celiac disease, which means just a tiny amount of gluten — a protein found in wheat, barley and other grains — can make them seriously ill. So, they pulled out one of the testing devices they helped develop; only after it confirmed a gluten-free reading did they feel confident enough to dig in.

“I was like, ‘I’ve never had anything this good,’” Seaton Smith recalled of the supreme pizza, but without the test, “I wouldn’t have eaten it. I was that afraid of it.”

The Powell couple is now trying to bring some of that same relief to others with celiac disease around the world. In partnership with Taiwanese scientist and entrepreneur Leo (Wen-Hao) Chen, the Smiths began selling their gluten testers late last month. The trio’s company, LEO Verification Systems, has already sold around 15,000 of the disposable units and hired two part-time workers to help staff their warehouse south of town. They also have a marketing staff working remotely.

For being a brand new company, “we’ve just been exploding sales,” Smith said — and LEO hopes to eventually expand their product line to offer similar testing for other top allergens, like peanuts or soy.

“We’re, again, a small company trying to grow as fast as we can, but logically,” Smith said.

Coming out of retirement

The origin of LEO Verification Systems traces back nearly a decade, to when the Smiths were operating Gluten Free Oats/GF Harvest. They and their son Forrest started that business in 2004 to offer oat products that celiacs could safely enjoy. It became an international success, doing more than $1 million in annual sales in places like Europe and Australia.

When the State of Wyoming established an Asia Pacific Trade Office in 2018, the Smiths explored ways that they could partner with companies in Taiwan. It was through the trade office and director Chester Chu that they met Chen, who believed he could lower the company’s costs of testing for gluten.

Chen’s proposal wasn’t quite the right fit for GF Harvest’s needs at the time, and the Smiths sold the business in 2020. But the connection — and Chen’s designs for effective, low-cost gluten testing — ultimately brought the Smiths out of semi-retirement.

LEO Verified’s current testers are aimed at helping those with celiac disease to “Love Eating Out” again, whether that’s at a restaurant, a church function or a family member’s home. Its testers are listed at $35 for a three-pack, all the way up to $250 for a 40-pack.

“Our goal is to get it to them at the most reasonable price,” Smith said, “because as a celiac, my breads cost twice as much as yours and taste twice as terrible.”

A three-minute process

The testing process is simple: you open the kit, wet the enclosed swab, apply it to three to five different spots on your meal, dip it in a solution for 30 seconds, then put a few drops on the tester. Results appear in three minutes. The testers indicate whether the samples have less than 10 parts per million of gluten, which, Smith says, is the equivalent of finding 10 dimes within a mile-high stack of pennies.

Results can be read straight from the tester, but can also be checked online by scanning a QR code and taking a picture with a “LeoMyFood” app. Users can photograph their food, too, helping with LEO’s research and, eventually, to create a restaurant guide for those with gluten free diets.

Beyond sales to consumers, LEO is marketing the product to restaurants, hotels, dieticians, doctors, cruise lines and others as an easy way to check for gluten.

“Anything that has to do with travel and gluten free food,” Smith said.

Getting it right the first time

Smith describes the device as a tool and not perfection; the tester is 95% accurate, he said, and he notes that it only checks the spots on the food that the user swabs.

The tester is backed up by its own testing and research, including a December paper that Chen, several other Taiwanese researchers and the Smiths published in the journal ACS Omega about their new “integrated food allergy and microorganism sensor (iFams).”

Gluten Free Oats’ success and reputation under the Smith family hinged on not cutting corners. Seaton Smith recalled getting some criticism from a certification agency that they were doing too much testing, but he didn’t want a kid getting sick from one of his bowls of oatmeal.

Smith said they’ve sought to bring that same rigor to these testers, which is why their launch came a couple months later than expected.

“We wanted to be right the first time,” Smith said.

Receiving a boost

In preparing for launch, the Smiths and LEO were aided by gBETA Wyoming, a business accelerator for early-stage startups. LEO was one of only five companies chosen to participate in the seven-week program last fall, chosen among 33 applicants. gBETA provides coaching, along with helping connect Wyoming start-ups to mentors plus potential customers, corporate partners and investors.

“It was amazing,” Smith said of the program, recalling lessons on everything from marketing to honing a pitch deck for venture capitalists.

LEO has been bootstrapped with self-funding to date, but Smith said they’ll seek some investors down the road.

He hopes to eventually bring part of the company’s production process to the United States. In the meantime, the testers are being manufactured in Taiwan, thanks to connections fostered by the state’s Asia Pacific Trade Office.

“I have nothing but good to say about them,” Smith said of the office and its personnel.

The office was established in 2018 by Gov. Matt Mead and continued by Gov. Mark Gordon, who just returned from a trade mission to Taiwan and Japan.

At a Wednesday press conference about his trip, Gordon highlighted a few Wyoming businesses that are selling products in or partnering with Taiwan. That included LEO Verified Systems and its gluten testers.

“This is an incredible tool and we’re looking to see that expand here in the country, too,” Gordon said. “It’s just very exciting to see those kinds of efforts on the small-, medium-enterprise front that are coming to fruition in Taiwan.”

Smith encourages more Powell and Park County businesses to be willing to think globally.

“Most businesses starting up small companies here, they think about selling to you and you, and maybe the next county or maybe the next state,” he said, but he encourages more local entrepreneurs to think about overseas sales, too.

LEO’s testers are unique in the market because of the portability they offer. But Smith is quick to say that the company is not so much about a product but a passion for helping others.

“That’s our heart,” he said.

For more information, visit leoverified.com.