June 5, 2024 – Chef Boyardee

We’re halfway through our theme week on the real people behind famous food brands. Today we’re talking about Chef Boyardi, whose real name was Hector Boiardi. He was an Italian immigrant who was a real deal chef, working as head chef at the Plaza Hotel in New York City and even directing the catering for Woodrow Wilson’s second wedding in 1915! He moved to Cleveland where he opened his own restaurant in 1924, Il Giardino D’Italia (The Garden of Italy). It was extremely popular, and customers often asked for samples and recipes of his spaghetti sauce. He started selling it packaged in clean milk bottles. Some customers of his restaurant owned a local self-service grocery store, and helped Boiardi and his brothers develop a process to can their food at scale. Soon their spaghetti sauce was on the shelves of markets nationwide. After spaghetti sauce, their next product was a complete spaghetti meal, which came with a canister of parmesan cheese, a box of dry spaghetti, and a jar of sauce. In 1938, production moved to a factory in Milton, Pennsylvania, where they could grow enough tomatoes and mushrooms to serve their needs. During World War II, the U.S. military commissioned Chef Boyardi to produce army rations. The factory operated 24/7 and at its peak, had 5,000 employees and produced 250,000 cans daily, becoming the largest supplier of rations during the war. After the war, Boiardi sold the company but remained their spokesperson, appearing in many print and TV ads from the 1940s-70s. Hector Boiardi died in 1985 at the age of 87, but his face still graces every Chef Boyardee product today. Learn more here.