Prego facts for kids
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Prego's "Sauce of the year"
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| Type | Pasta sauce |
|---|---|
| Owner | Campbell Soup Company |
| Country | U.S. |
| Introduced | 1981 |
| Markets | Worldwide |
Prego means "You're welcome!" in Italian. It is a popular brand of pasta sauce. The Campbell Soup Company makes Prego sauces. They were first introduced around the world in 1981.
Contents
Different Kinds of Prego Sauces
Prego offers many different types of pasta sauces.
Traditional Pasta Sauces
The classic Prego pasta sauce comes in many flavors. Some popular ones are marinara, traditional, and mini meatball. You can also find zesty mushroom and roasted garlic Parmesan.
Organic and Hearty Sauces
Prego also has an Organic line. Two flavors, Organic Mushroom and Organic Tomato and Basil, are made with all organic ingredients. Another line is called Hearty Meat sauce. It includes flavors like Meatball Parmesan and Authentic Italian Sausage. There's also a Three Meat Supreme flavor.
Chunky Garden and Regional Sauces
The Chunky Garden Pasta Sauce line has flavors like Garden Combination and Mushroom Supreme. You can also find Mushrooms & Green Pepper, and Tomato, Onion & Garlic. In some parts of Asia, Prego makes special local flavors. For example, they have Tom Yam sauce in Thailand and Malaysia.
New Creamy Pesto Sauces
In May 2024, Prego added new Creamy Pesto sauces. These sauces mix the rich taste of Alfredo sauce with the fresh, herby flavor of pesto. They use ingredients like fresh basil and cream. This new line offers three kinds: Creamy Basil Pesto, Creamy Roasted Garlic Pesto, and Creamy Parmesan Pesto. They give people more choices beyond the usual red sauces.
How Prego Sauce Was Made
In the 1970s, the Campbell Soup Company wanted to make more products using tomatoes. They decided to create a new pasta sauce.
Developing the Recipe
Campbell's research team and Chef Werner Schilling worked hard. They found a way to make thick tomato sauce in large amounts. This sauce would not separate, which was a big problem for other companies. Other pasta sauce brands often used starch to make their sauces thick. This made their sauces less like homemade ones. Because Prego found a way to avoid separation, their sauce felt more like a homemade sauce.
A Big Success
This new way of making sauce, along with smart marketing, made Prego very successful. It was one of the most popular new food products in the early 1980s. In 2017, William M. Hildebolt, who led the team that developed Prego, wrote a book about it. The book is called It's in There!.
Improving the Taste
In 1986, Prego wanted to keep growing. They worked with Howard Moskowitz, an expert in how people sense things. He helped them create many different versions of the sauce. By testing these versions, they found ways to make the sauce taste even better. They also found ways to keep costs low. This work helped make Prego's original recipe a bit sweeter before it launched. This change matched what many people liked, helping the sauce become a huge hit.
Prego's Marketing Success
Prego had amazing sales in its first year. It made over $100 million and had 28% of the market. This was a huge achievement for a new food brand.
Smart Advertising
Prego's marketing was also very clever. Laurel Cutler and Herb Baum helped create a strong plan to launch the product. They pushed for aggressive advertising, even when some other leaders were unsure.
The Clara Peller Ad
The brand was part of a small controversy because of an ad featuring Clara Peller. She was an older woman famous for saying "Where's the beef?" in ads for Wendy's Restaurants. In the Prego ad, she held a giant jar of Prego meat sauce and said, "I finally found it!" Wendy's did not approve of her being in the Prego ad. Because of this, Wendy's stopped using her in their own campaigns.
Prego on the History Channel
In March 2024, the History Channel shared the story of how Prego was developed. This was on their show "The Food that Built America." The episode was the first one of season five and was called "All American Marinara."
