By far our (and many, many others') favorite sauce from a jar, it is really good. Bought up by the giant food company, what could go wrong? Fortunately the sale won't go through until December, reportedly, so there is time to buy up what you can get. Yeah yeah, they say they won't mess with the recipe, sure, riiiiiiight.
Campbell Soup is set to buy Sovos Brands, the maker of Rao’s pasta sauces. In a Monday announcement, the two companies said they had entered an agreement for Campbell’s to acquire Sovos for $23 per share in cash — reflecting a total value of about $2.7 billion.
I’m sure the recipe is safe. A big conglomerate would never try to change a recipe just to cut production costs, would it? I saw this headline the other day, told my wife, and went to the pantry to see how much space we have for more jars of Rao’s.
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Campbell's CEO has come out with a "clear statement" that they won't be messing with Rao's recipe. He states they'll treat it like Campbell's chicken noodle soup which hasn't changed in 147 years. Besides, they already have Prego for the lower-cost crowd. Of course, CEO promises should be taken with a grain of Morton's salt (product placement).
Rao's sauce went "corporate" in 2017 with the sale to Sovos, the entity that was just purchased by Campbells..
"Before founding Sovos, Lachman, who is also a director, was operating partner at private-equity firm Altamont Capital Partners from May 2015 to March 2016 and a senior adviser at Advent (private equity). Lachman partnered with Advent as well as Sovos chairman William Johnson to create Sovos. Johnson has been an operating partner at Advent since June 2014. Three other directors also hold positions at Advent.
Christopher Hall has been chief financial officer at Sovossince November 2019. Hall has also held positions at Sabra Dipping Company, LLC and PepsiCo Robert Graves, vice president of strategic initiatives and a board member, is also the owner of Morning Fresh Dairy Farm, LLC,"
Not exactly the culinary history you might expect reading only that some huge conglomerate just bought Rao's....
I don't see how the move to Campbells is any better or worse than it's already been for the past number of years.
Disclaimer: I buy it from time to time and like it.
There's a lot more good sauces on the market today than there were even 10 years ago. I buy Rao's sometimes. Some of their sauces are moderate in salt content. I've found that if you stick to sauces in the 300 mg or so range, they are fine taste-wise (go below that at the peril of your taste buds). Rao's fit the bill. If they change that aspect of their product, I will not (cannot) buy it. There are other good options out there.
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To be clear, we make our own sauce regularly as well, but sometimes after a long day or what have you, it's nice to have something reliably good on the shelf ready to use. We always keep it handy.
I honestly didn't think it was amazing as people make it out to be, it's good store sauce... but my go to is Classico and then we doctor it up with more stuff, for the price I think we still come out ahead
I keep a few jars of it for "emergencies", usually pick up a two pack when Costco has on sale. I like it, and i like the ingredient profile. Used to make my own when I lived in East Tennessee, here in Florida they ship the nicer tomatoes north while green, and it's hard to grow many when so freaking hot. Might have to start making it anyway, and freezing, as I like Rao's. Then again, Costco will have it on sale at least a few times in the next several months, and I have a fairly large garage....
There are times I want red sauce based pasta but I don't have time to make it. I've been using Rao's marinara as my go to. Recently, I tried Victoria marinara and I like it just as much. They both go on the BOGO rotation and I'll buy it then.
Rao's is good but pricey..$8.99 a jar. I bought it once, it was good but not $8.99 good. Mezzeta with only natural ingredients on the high end is $6.99 and $4.99 on sale. I think is better than Rao's anyway. Still sad to see a smaller company swallowed up by the big sharks.
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