The brand is styled RAGÚ, with an acute accent over the final “U”. This distinguishes it from the Italian culinary word ragù, which normally uses a grave accent and refers to a category of Italian meat-based sauces.

RAGÚ’s identity is built around the concept of Italian culinary heritage adapted to American family cooking. Its official history describes the brand as beginning with a family recipe brought from Italy that eventually became an American household staple.[1]

The brand’s visual identity has also historically emphasised Italian imagery. During the 1950s, RAGÚ added a recognisable Venetian gondola to its packaging, helping establish an immediate Italian association for consumers.

Italian origins

The story begins with Assunta Cantisano, who emigrated from Italy to the United States with her husband, Giovanni, in 1914. According to RAGÚ’s official history, Assunta brought a cherished family sauce recipe with her when the couple left Naples.[1]

The couple eventually settled in Rochester, New York, where they maintained a backyard garden. Tomatoes and herbs from that garden became key ingredients in the homemade sauce that would eventually form the basis of RAGÚ.[1]

1937: Birth of RAGÚ

The commercial RAGÚ story officially began in 1937, during the Great Depression. Assunta and Giovanni began selling their homemade tomato sauce directly from their home. What started as a small family operation eventually attracted enough demand that their kitchen could no longer handle production.[1]

This origin story remains central to the brand’s modern marketing: a homemade sauce created by an Italian immigrant family that developed into a mass-market American food brand.

1940s: First factory

By 1946, the operation had outgrown the Cantisanos’ home, leading to the opening of RAGÚ’s first factory in Rochester. This marked the transition from a local homemade product into a larger-scale commercial food business.[1]

1950s: Building the visual brand

During the 1950s, RAGÚ introduced the Venetian gondola imagery that became associated with its packaging. This helped visually communicate the brand’s Italian heritage to shoppers.

1960s: National family-food brand

By the 1960s, RAGÚ had become a prominent presence on American family dinner tables. The brand increasingly positioned pasta sauce not merely as an ethnic speciality but as a convenient part of everyday home cooking.

1970s: “That’s Italian”

One of RAGÚ’s most memorable advertising campaigns emerged in the 1970s, using the phrase “That’s Italian.” The campaign became an important part of the brand’s cultural identity and reinforced the connection between RAGÚ and Italian-style home cooking.

1990s: Expansion beyond red sauce

RAGÚ eventually expanded beyond its traditional tomato-based sauces. In 1998, the company introduced its Alfredo sauce nationally. RAGÚ describes it as the first nationally distributed white sauce in its portfolio.[1]

This helped broaden the brand from a traditional spaghetti-sauce company into a wider pasta-sauce business.

2014: Acquisition by Mizkan

A major change occurred in 2014, when Japan’s Mizkan Group acquired RAGÚ along with Bertolli’s U.S. pasta-sauce business. Mizkan describes the acquisition as its entry into the U.S. pasta-sauce market.[1]

RAGÚ is consequently no longer an independent family-owned company; it is part of Mizkan’s North American food portfolio.

2017: 80th anniversary

RAGÚ celebrated its 80th anniversary in 2017, including a presence at the Rose Parade. The anniversary campaign emphasised Assunta and Giovanni’s original home-based operation and the brand’s transformation into an American household name.[1]

2018: Simply Sauces

In 2018, RAGÚ introduced RAGÚ Simply Sauces, reflecting broader consumer interest in simpler ingredient lists. The line was formulated around tomatoes, onions, garlic, basil and olive oil, with no added sugar according to the brand.[1]

RAGÚ’s corporate history can be summarised as follows:

• Cantisano family / Ragu Packing Company
• Chesebrough-Pond’s
• Unilever
• Mizkan Group / Mizkan America

The brand was eventually sold to Chesebrough-Pond’s, which later became part of Unilever. Mizkan acquired RAGÚ in 2014.[1]

Today, Mizkan America, Inc. lists RAGÚ among its major North American brands, alongside brands such as Bertolli, Holland House and NAKANO.[1]

Mizkan itself is a Japanese, family-owned food company whose history stretches back more than 200 years. Its North American business includes pasta sauces and vinegar products, with RAGÚ and Bertolli described by Mizkan as major sellers.[1]

RAGÚ has developed a broad range of sauces rather than remaining limited to traditional marinara.

Tomato-based pasta sauces

The brand’s core products include traditional tomato sauces and marinara-style sauces. Its Old World Style® range is particularly important to the brand’s heritage positioning. These sauces use vine-ripened tomatoes and Italian spices and are marketed as descendants of the sauce that originated in an Italian mother’s kitchen.[1]

Examples include:

• Traditional Sauce
• Marinara Sauce
• Meat Sauce
• Mushroom Sauce
• Parmesan & Romano Sauce
• Six Cheese Sauce[1]

Chunky sauces

RAGÚ also sells Chunky sauces, characterised by diced tomatoes and vegetables. Examples include Mushroom, Mushroom & Green Pepper, Tomato Garlic & Onion, Garden Combination and Hearty Traditional varieties.[1]

Cheese and Alfredo sauces

The brand’s white-sauce portfolio includes products such as:

• Classic Alfredo
• Four Cheese Alfredo
• Roasted Garlic Parmesan
• Double Cheddar
• Bacon-flavored Alfredo

RAGÚ states that its cheese sauces can incorporate Italian cheeses such as Asiago, Romano, Parmesan and Fontina.[1]

Pizza sauce

RAGÚ also has a pizza sauce category, extending its tomato-sauce expertise beyond pasta.[1]

RAGÚ Simply Sauces

The Simply line represents a more ingredient-conscious interpretation of the traditional RAGÚ proposition. The brand describes these sauces as using recognisable ingredients including tomatoes, onions, garlic, basil and olive oil, with no added sugar.[1]

Kettle Cooked

The newer Kettle Cooked range is positioned toward richer, more premium-tasting sauces. Current varieties include Marinara, Tomato Basil, Roasted Garlic, Italian Herbs and Spicy Italian.[1]

RAGÚ occupies a distinct position between Italian culinary tradition and American convenience food. It does not primarily sell itself as an ultra-authentic regional Italian food brand. Instead, its identity is closer to Italian-inspired tradition made accessible to families.

Its storytelling repeatedly returns to several ideas:

• A recipe originating with an Italian immigrant family
• Homemade cooking
• Family meals
• Tomatoes and traditional ingredients
• Slow-simmered flavour
• Convenience
• Passing recipes and traditions between generations

The phrase “Simmered in Tradition” captures this positioning particularly well and has been used by RAGÚ in its modern brand communications.[1]

RAGÚ has historically relied heavily on family-oriented advertising rather than presenting itself purely as a gourmet product. Its 1970s “That’s Italian” campaign became particularly recognisable. The advertising helped establish a cultural shorthand in which RAGÚ represented an accessible version of Italian cooking for households.

This distinction is significant: RAGÚ’s success was not simply based on selling tomato sauce. It helped popularise the idea that pasta with prepared sauce could be a normal family dinner.

RAGÚ’s packaging has traditionally been highly recognisable. Historically, the brand used Italian imagery—including the Venetian gondola—to establish its heritage. More recently, the brand has maintained distinctive yellow caps across its sauce packaging.

A packaging redesign emphasised the iconic yellow cap across the product range while attempting to make differences between sauce varieties easier for consumers to identify on store shelves.

An important distinction is that RAGÚ is an American brand, not an Italian company. Its story and flavour positioning are rooted in Italian-American culinary heritage, but the commercial brand itself was established in Rochester, New York, and its history is intertwined with the development of packaged foods in the United States.[1]

Likewise, RAGÚ should not automatically be equated with traditional Italian ragù. Italian ragù refers broadly to cooked meat-based sauces, with famous regional examples including Bolognese and Neapolitan preparations. RAGÚ, by contrast, became particularly famous in America for commercial tomato-based pasta sauces sold in jars.

RAGÚ’s historical significance lies less in inventing pasta sauce and more in industrialising and popularising a form of Italian-American home cooking. The company took a sauce associated with an immigrant family’s kitchen and transformed it into a shelf-stable consumer product that could be purchased by millions of households.

In that sense, RAGÚ sits at the intersection of Italian immigration, Italian-American cuisine, packaged food and family cooking. Its history also illustrates a broader development in U.S. food culture: foods once prepared primarily at home or within immigrant communities increasingly became commercially packaged and marketed nationwide.

Under Mizkan, RAGÚ became part of a much larger international food company. Mizkan’s North American operation focuses substantially on vinegar and pasta sauce, and the company describes RAGÚ and Bertolli as two of its major pasta-sauce brands.

Mizkan’s ownership has allowed RAGÚ to remain a major consumer brand while continuing to evolve its portfolio, including newer product concepts such as Simply Sauces and Kettle Cooked sauces.

As of 2026, RAGÚ continues to operate as a major U.S. pasta-sauce brand under Mizkan America. Its current portfolio spans traditional tomato sauces, Old World Style sauces, Chunky sauces, Simply Sauces, Kettle Cooked sauces, cheese and Alfredo sauces, and pizza sauce.[1]

The modern brand therefore combines more than 85 years of American commercial history with a contemporary emphasis on convenience, recognisable ingredients and family meals. Mizkan itself describes RAGÚ as having evolved from the Cantisano family’s first jar sold from their Rochester home in 1937 into a household staple.

• 1914 — Assunta and Giovanni Cantisano immigrate from Italy to the United States.
• 1937 — RAGÚ begins commercial sales from the Cantisano home in Rochester, New York.
• 1946 — The first RAGÚ factory opens as demand outgrows the family’s kitchen.
• 1950s — The recognisable Venetian gondola imagery appears on packaging.
• 1960s — RAGÚ becomes established as an American family-table brand.
• 1970s — The famous “That’s Italian” advertising campaign appears.
• 1998 — RAGÚ’s Alfredo sauce is nationally distributed.
• 2014 — Mizkan acquires RAGÚ and Bertolli’s U.S. pasta-sauce business.
• 2017 — RAGÚ celebrates its 80th anniversary.
• 2018 — RAGÚ Simply Sauces launches.
• 2020s — The brand expands its portfolio with newer formats including Kettle Cooked sauces.
• 2026 — RAGÚ remains part of Mizkan America’s North American brand portfolio.

1. About RAGU | Learn The RAGÚ History Here