The History of RAGÚ Pasta Sauce

In 1914, Assunta and her husband Giovanni left Italy for America. They brought their family sauce recipe with them and put down roots in Rochester, New York. Once settled, they promptly started a backyard garden where they grew tomatoes and herbs. In the midst of the Great Depression in 1937, Assunta and Giovanni began selling their homemade marinara sauce from their front porch. By 1946, their sauce business had outgrown their kitchen and the couple had opened the first RAGÚ factory in Rochester, New York. The iconic Venetian gondola was added to the sauce’s packaging in the 1950s and RAGÚ really began to take off in the 1960s, when the pasta sauce became a household name. In the 1970s, the RAGÚ brand ran a famous ad campaign with the tagline, “That’s Italian.” RAGÚ debuted the first nationally distributed, jarred white sauce in 1998 with the release of RAGÚ Classic Alfredo Sauce. In 2018, the brand launched a line of sauces made with olive oil and no added sugar called RAGÚ Simply Sauces. Today, RAGÚ pasta sauces are still some of the most popular and recognizable jarred pasta sauces on grocery store shelves and the product line has grown to include over 20 different options, including various red sauces, white sauces, and even a pizza sauce.