Mopping up success

After 40 years of working in the oil field industry as a mud engineer, Odell Veillon discovered a way to make the grease disappear from your gumbo like magic.
Using the same concept as the rope and belt mops that he had seen used in the oil field to suck up oil off of water, the Pine Prairie native engineered the creation of a much smaller mop that could be used to remove unwanted grease from foods and named it the Magic Mop.
It’s name came from the fact that Veillon said, “It’s kind of magical the way the mop works. It’s like magic in the sense that it makes your grease disappear from pretty much any food.”
Veillon said, “In 1993 Oil Mop Incorporation in New Orleans was shutting down, so I decided to buy it. I had seen these mops soak up oil from water, and I knew that there had to be a way to apply that to removing grease from food.”
Once he had the vision, Veillon moved the business, which is now called All Mops & Brushes, to his hometown of Pine Prairie and continued making rope and belt mops, which have the ability to pick up 15 to 20 times its weight in oil, for oil and gas companies, car industries, and all of metal industries while he worked for two years preparing his Magic Mop. According to Veillon, well known companies like John Deere and even Cleco Corporation “are required to have a certain amount of rope mops on hand” in case a situation ever arose where any unwanted substance needs to be soaked up.
When it came to creating the Magic Mop, Veillon’s wife Patricia “Pat” Veillon said, “A smaller mop was used to demonstrate how the rope and belt mop works. That’s how Odell knew it could be made in a smaller form.”
Veillon then added, “Being from Louisiana, I knew there had to be a market for this.”
But even with that in mind, the mop had to be changed due to the fact that it was going to be used in the food industry.
“It took us two years of working on the Magic Mop before we could sell them because it had to be FDA (Federal Drug Administration) approved,” said Veillon. “Because this would be used in food, the materials had to be changed a little.”
According to Veillon, the exact same yarn is used in the Rope Mop, Belt Mop, and Magic Mop, but “the UV chemicals and lubricates are left off of the yarn used for the Magic Mop.”
Veillon said, “The yarn we use works great for picking up oil. It’s pretty neat to watch too, because you can literally see the fibers of the yarn sucking up the oil and grease.”
Once he perfected the portion of the mop that would make people’s gravy a little less greasy, Veillon realized his invention could be taken one step further.
“There needed to be a way to remove the grease from the mop so that it could be used again,” said Veillon. “That’s why I created the feral or sleeve that slides down the mop to remove the grease.”
The feral, which Veillon has a patent for, has evolved over the years.
Pat said, “When we first started making them the feral was just a short piece that only squeezed the bottom of the mop which didn’t work that well. That’s why Odell ended up creating a feral that was the same length as the mop its self.”
Veillon said, “The feral looks simple but it’s actually very intricate. It’s hard to tell, but the feral isn’t all one size. We had to create the molds for the ferals and handles once we had them just the way we wanted it.”
Once ready for business, Veillon began selling the Magic Mop wholesale to Pampered Chef in bulks of 150,000 to 200,000 mops a month, and to this day even after Pampered Chef remains the only place you can purchase your very own Magic Mop.
“There was a change in ownership in the early 2000s and the new owner decided to take all of the items out of the catalog that had been in there for so many years,” said Veillon. “But the people were crying for the Magic Mop, so after eight years they wanted us to begin selling to them again. We don’t sell as many today though. We sell 5,000 a month now to Pampered Chef.”
Even though the numbers have dropped, what makes Veillon’s business so special is the fact that he is the only one out there that produces these products.
Veillon said, “As long as there is a need for these mops in industries and food services then people will be using what my workers make. We ship all over the world, and that’s because there is nobody else that does what we do.”