Zatarain's is an American food and spice company based in New Orleans, Louisiana, in the United States that makes a large family of products with seasonings and spices that are part of the cultural cuisine and heritage of Louisiana and New Orleans' Cajun and Creole traditions that includes root beer extract, seasonings, boxed and frozen foods.

He started a new business, Papoose Pure Food Products, built a factory, and began to market it in 1889.

According to great-great granddaughter Allison Zatarain, "Emile introduced Papoose Root Beer at 2:30 p.m. on May 7, 1889, at the Louisiana (Purchase) Exposition.

"[2] Several years later, Zatarain found that it was more cost effective to sell the root beer blend as an extract.

His root beer extract sold in barrels to restaurants and markets where it was added to carbonated water.

In 1963, Viavant merged Zatarain's Papoose Products Co., Inc. and another recently-acquired business, Pelican State Lab, owner of a brand of coated fish frying seasoning mix called Fish-Fri, which was brought under the Zatarain's label, and became a best-seller.

He dropped bleach, dyes, and pickles and focused on the profit centers at a new plant with modern equipment on a five-acre campus in Gretna, Louisiana, where he turned Zatarain's into a regionally well-known brand by the early 1970s.

[6] With sales now at $10M a year, as Viavant neared retirement, he sold the business to Centra Soya Co. for $24 million in May 1984.

Centra increased sales revenues to $14M when it sold Zatarain's to a San Francisco holding company, Wyndham Foods, Inc., 18 months later.

Zatarain's had several more owners over a period of months in the late 1980s, including American Brands of Old Greenwich, Connecticut.