1942.
The shots of World War 2 ring throughout Europe.
Tired and exhausted, soldiers find what peace they can in a pre-packaged meal.
And find the comforting flavors of a tin of spaghetti ready and waiting for them.
A meal cooked by a 16-year-old who had moved to America from one of the
very countries they were fighting, and who would soon collect millions
of dollars from his canned spaghetti.
Ettore Boiardi, the man who would become Chef Boyardee, was a born chef.
Born in the northern Italian town of Piacenza on October 22, 1897,
Ettore loved cooking at a young age.
So young, that his family says that he used a wire whisk as a baby
rattle, and had become a chef’s apprentice at the young age of 11.
Only five years later, Ettore would be moving a world away.
By 16, Ettore struck out on his own.
He left Italy and set out for New York City, where his brother
Paul lived and worked as a waiter at the famous Plaza Hotel.
There, Paul managed to get Ettore a job in the kitchen.
And the staff quickly learned what Ettore’s family knew since he was a baby.
Ettore was a cooking prodigy.
A year later, Ettore was made head chef.
But Ettore wasn’t done.
What would have been the culmination of a life’s work for most was only
a stepping stone in Ettore’s career.
Over the next decade, Ettore built a name for himself in the food industry.
He began working as the head chef at many hotels before supervising
at a Presidential wedding.
Ettore ended up settling in Cleveland as a head chef, but not for long.
He knew it was time.
Time to move on to his own ventures.
Ettore opened his first restaurant with his new wife.
He named it Giardino d' Italia: The Garden of Italy.
But while we now see Italian food as luxurious, at the time it had nowhere
close to the prestige it now carries.
Instead, at the time, all the fine food restaurants were French.
But Ettore was such a skilled chef that not only was his restaurant an instant
success, his customers begged him to teach them how to cook Italian meals.
And then, Ettore had an idea.
"What if we started jarring our sauce and selling it?
Would it sell?"
Ettore asked his family.
Immediately, Ettore began collecting milk bottles and filling them with his pasta
sauces, which he sold to his customers.
Before long, he began offering take out orders of cheese, uncooked
pasta, and his famous sauce.
Before long, his sauce became so famous that sales surpassed
his restaurant business.
Ettore was drowning in his own success.
He could no longer handle all the orders himself.
He needed to expand.
Little did he realize that once he did, his company would be called to serve
in the largest conflict of the century.
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Ettore had a problem.
Customers were clamoring for his sauce.
The demand outweighed how fast he could bottle it.
He needed to increase production, and fast.
So, he did.
Ettore set up a small canning and processing plant in Cleveland.
He brought his brothers Paul and Mario in, and together they launched
the Chef Boiardi Food Company.
This new business brought three different spaghetti sauces to market: traditional,
mushroom, and spicy Naples-style.
Business was booming, but Ettore had an embarrassing problem…
American customers and salesmen couldn’t pronounce Boiardi.
So Ettore changed the spelling to one that customers could sound out: Boy-ar-dee.
"Everyone is proud of his own family name, but sacrifices are necessary for progress.”
Ettore later explained.
It would be another eight years before the product that made Chef Boyardee famous
hit the market: pre-packaged meals.
Their first was simple: a jar of spaghetti sauce, a container of grated
parmesan cheese, and a box of spaghetti.
A full spaghetti dinner, ready to make at home.
The company began selling its canned sauces in A&P grocery stores, opening
the brand to a national market.
And just at the perfect time.
An easy to use can opener had just hit the market, and Americans now
saw canned products as trusted, nutritious, and labor-saving.
Every day, larger quantities of canned sauces and pre-packaged meals flowed
out of the Chef Boyardee factory.
There was no arguing that Chef Boyardee was successful.
Too successful.
Within two years, the company had grown so large that its
plant just couldn’t keep up.
So, Ettore packed up and moved operations from the plant in Cleveland
to a factory in MIlton Pennsylvania.
This new location had another advantage in addition to its larger size: It
was closer to their tomato supply.
In fact, the family needed so many tomatoes that they had to convince local
farmers to change crops to get enough.
Chef Boyardee had become a commodity in the market.
And soon, the United States would need that commodity when America went to war.
With a war raging, the United States military needed foods with a long shelf
life that could be transported to the frontlines in Europe and the Pacific.
Something Chef Boyardee was already skilled at.
The United States commissioned the company to churn out can after
can of rations for the soldiers.
To keep up with increased demand, the factory kept its lights on and
its production lines running 24 hours a day, seven days a week.
And their efforts did not go unnoticed.
A year after the war was won, Ettore Boiardi, was awarded the Gold Star: one
of the highest awards a civilian can receive, and his workers gathered in
Milton to celebrate the Allied victory.
It was a great honor, and it would be the last one he received
as the head of his own company.
While his company was being praised for their service in the
war, he was also dealing with a looming threat to his employees.
Simply put, without the demand created by the war, he couldn’t
afford to keep on all of the employees he hired to increase production.
There was only one choice to be made: sell the company.
It was a difficult decision, but Ettore knew that only a larger
company could keep his staff employed.
He decided to sell Chef Boyardee to American Home for $6 million.
After the sale, Ettore continued to work with the company as both
a consultant and spokesperson.
And then, tragedy struck.
At the age of 87, Ettore passed away from an illness.
By this time, he was widely recognized as one of the top
culinary talents in all of America.
In the following years, Chef Boyardee launched more products that were
canned and microwaveable, including ravioli, beefaroni, and lasagna.
Despite the expansion, American Home eventually decided to sell its
food businesses and focus on health care and pharmaceuticals instead.
As the years went on Chef Boyardee sales remained steady,
even as Americans continued to prefer fresh food over canned.
But when the COVID-19 pandemic began, sales surged as people were stuck at
home and Americans searched for cheap, easy to make, comforting meals..
Today, Chef Boyardee is owned by Conagra Brands and has
contributed to that conglomerate’s recent 35% increase in growth.
And Americans still seek out Chef Boyardee products like beefaroni,
ravioli, and spaghetti and meatballs as a go-to comfort food.
This is the story of how a 16-year-old left Italy for the U.S.
and worked his way up from a waiter to one of the top culinary talents — building
a famous food brand along the way.
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