Family-run Del Grosso Foods nears 80 years of pasta sauce tradition in Pennsylvania

TIPTON, Pa. (WPVI) -- Del Grosso Foods, a family-owned sauce producer based in Tipton, Pennsylvania, has spent nearly eight decades turning a grandmother's original spaghetti sauce recipe into a business that now ships millions of jars across the country.

Retired CEO Joseph Del Grosso, a second-generation leader in the company, said the signature product remains rooted in its earliest days.

"353 the original sauce, which my grandmother created, is a meat-flavored spaghetti sauce," he said.

He added that the recipe "is basically made almost exactly the way it was 79 years ago."

The company began not as a sauce operation but as part of an amusement park business that Del Grosso's parents started.

"My dad and mother started this business, actually, so a lot of people think it was started as a spaghetti sauce company, but it was actually started in an amusement park," he said.

Over time, his father began using his mother-in-law's spaghetti sauce recipe and producing it commercially "on a very, very small scale."

In the early years, Del Grosso described the facility as "a garage operation," producing only three to five cases a day.

Today, the company operates two plants that make both red and white sauces, each producing about 42 vats, or roughly 260,000 jars, per day.

When asked why the brand has endured, Del Grosso pointed to the company's roots.

"I think it's really been the fact that we're still family-owned, which I think is important, number one," he said. "Number two, quality has always been something that our family, my father, was very, very particular about."

Beyond sauce production, the Del Grosso family continues to run the amusement park where the business began.

The park employs about 500 Pennsylvanians seasonally and serves as a place where fourth-generation family members get their start before moving into the factory.

Pride in the community remains central to the company's identity.

"It's our home, it's been our home forever, and I'm just very proud of the community that we live in because there's just so much pride in this area for lots of different things," Del Grosso said.

The company also sells a second brand, La Famiglia, nationwide.

Del Grosso Foods is preparing to celebrate its 80th anniversary next year.