Homemade sauce: from the trunk of a car to the top of the world
Ragú was founded in 1937 by Giovanni and Assunta Contisano. They brought their homemade recipe with them when they moved from Italy to America. They started selling the homemade sauce out of the trunk of their car, and eventually opened the first Ragú plant in their backyard in Rochester, New York.
In 1971, Ragú was the very first jarred pasta sauce available nationally and it has been the market leader ever since. That original recipe created by the Contisano family is almost identical to the Ragú Old World Style sauce you see on the shelf today.
In addition to being the first to bring jarred sauce to the masses, Ragú has also had a long history of innovations and "firsts":
- First line of "chunky" sauces (Chunky Gardenstyle) – introduced in 1983
- First line of shelf-stable real cheese sauces (Cheese Creations!) – introduced in 1997
- First Real Meat Sauce that delivers taste & quantity satisfaction (Rich & Meaty) – introduced in 2002
- First mainstream Organic pasta sauce (Ragú Organic) – introduced in 2005
