All language subtitles for The.Food.That.Built.America.S05E01.1080p.WEB.h264-EDITH

[dramatic music]

- [Narrator] It's one of
America's most popular

and endlessly
varied food staples.

- Americans can identify

a thousand different
shapes of pasta.

They are making
sauces from scratch,

making noodles from scratch.

- [Narrator] Today,
US households buy

$2.4 billion worth of
jarred tomato sauce,

and consume nearly 6 billion
pounds of pasta each year.

- Pasta's an amazing food stuff.

(dramatic music continues)

It's very inexpensive to make.
It's pretty much limitless.

- [Narrator] And Italian
food can be found in every

corner of the country.

- In malls and airports,

and wherever you can
get a bite to eat,

you can now usually
get Italian food.

- If you could have bought stock

in just Italian restaurants,

you would've been a
millionaire many times over.

- [Narrator] But
just 60 years ago,

Italian food was barely
known in the United States.

- In the 1960s,

Americans really didn't have
a relationship with pasta.

They had no idea
what al dente meant.

- If people only knew what
good tomato sauce tastes like.

They don't even know
what they're missing!

- [Narrator] It took
bold entrepreneurs

working at two different
food empires to change that.

- I'll give you carte
blanche. Don't screw it up.

- Develop it on your
own in secret.

- [Narrator] Creating
a whole new food genre

with an all American twist.

- Real Alfredo sauce doesn't
have any cream in it,

but if you ask any
American today,

they would most likely
tell you that it does.

- The most American thing

you can add to a
tomato sauce is sugar.

- Can we go even sweeter?

- The chef said this is
sounding like a dessert sauce.

It wasn't Italian food. It
was Italian-American food.

- [Narrator] With nearly
50,000 Italian restaurants

operating across
the United States.

- We were competing
against every authentic

Italian restaurant in
every town in America,

and we weren't authentic
Italian. And we knew it.

- [Narrator] Over a 150
million cans of SpaghettiOs

sold each year.

- Kids love it.

Moms love it. SpaghettiOs
is a massive hit.

- [Narrator] And 14.8 billion
dollars in pasta sauce sales.

- If I was looking at
three pasta sauces,

I'm gonna want the one that
says, this is authentic.

This is the real deal. Prego.

- [Narrator] Italian-
American cuisine

is now a cornerstone in
kitchens throughout the nation.

[dramatic music]

It is the early 1960s,

and the food served at
American dinner tables

is generally bland
and repetitive.

- It was meat, potatoes
and vegetables.

- Americans weren't generally

very adventurous
with their cooking.

It was a lot of casserole,
a lot of meatloaf,

a lot of jello molds.

They'd make a fancy sounding
dish like chicken a la king,

but it's really just
chicken casserole.

- [Narrator] Although
families did eat canned

and boxed pasta
like Chef Boyardee

or Kraft Macaroni & Cheese,

adults generally didn't
serve these for dinner.

Italian food itself
was a novelty.

- There were
Italian restaurants,

but they were mostly in
major population centers

like New York City
where there are

a lot of Italian immigrants.

Most Americans
weren't comfortable

trying to make
Italian food at home.

- [Narrator] But a new
type of Italian cuisine

is about to come from the
most unlikely of places.

A century old American company

known for its line
of condensed soups.

Campbell's.

- Campbell's was founded in 1869

by a fruit merchant
named Joseph Campbell,

and an icebox manufacturer
named Abraham Anderson.

- [Narrator] By 1963, the
Campbell's Soup Company is run

by a board of directors
and has become

a $600 million corporation.

- They were known
for Campbell's soups

and for their acquisitions.

So we're talking about
Swanson TV Dinners,

juices, and other products.

- [Narrator] None of
Campbell's products

have anything to do
with Italian food.

But an ambitious young manager
is about to blaze a new path.

- Donald Goerke first joined
the Campbell's Soup Company

in 1955 as an analyst
and worked his way up

from marketing analyst
to marketing manager.

- So Donald Goerke
arrives at Campbell's,

an international company,

great reputation,

but he's coming with
really high goals.

He wants to get promoted.
He wants to prove himself.

- Don, I've spoken to the team

and we think you're ready
to run your own division.

- Thank you. I'd be honored.

- From now on,
you'll be overseeing

the Franco-American line.

- Franco-American?

- [Narrator] It's not
exactly the promotion

he's been dreaming of.

Franco-American is
a small division

under the Campbell's
umbrella, and it's struggling.

- Franco-American was a
brand of canned spaghetti,

you know, a red sauce.

- Franco-American
had sort of become

like the ugly step-
sibling of Campbell's,

'cause the spaghetti
wasn't selling.

- Nobody's expecting
any miracles,

but keep your head
down and who knows,

maybe in a few years
we'll bring you back

under the Campbell's brand.

Congratulations.

- Thanks.

(light suspenseful music)

- Don Goerke was determined
to prove himself.

He'd been handed a dud.

If he could create
just one product

that would be a standout hit,

he could go back to the
flagship Campbell's division.

- [Narrator] Goerke jumps head
first into product research.

- The product's been on the
market for like 30 years,

but it's not selling well.

He's looking for a lifeline.

He's looking for
any market insight

that he can hang his hat on.

- Hey, yeah, I got
the market research.

Listen, listen, I
think there's been

some sort of mistake
with the demographics.

- What they did was
they put together

a bunch of focus
groups to try out

and to taste this Franco-
American canned spaghetti.

- Kids?

- The main takeaway from
all this focus group testing

is that when they gave the
canned spaghetti to kids,

the kids liked it.

- At this time, spaghetti was
thought of as kind of exotic,

so they were really
pretty surprised.

- [Narrator] Goerke
sees an opportunity

with the youth demographic.

As America's baby boom peaks,

there will be an estimated
20 million children

under the age of five by 1965.

A product that can
simplify a mother's life

and appeal to a child's
taste buds could turn

the Franco-American
division around.

- Goerke's wise
enough to realize

he's gotta appeal to
those 20 million kids.

He needs a kid-centric
approach to canned pasta.

- So the good news is he knows
who he needs to appeal to.

The bad news is he has no
idea how to appeal to kids,

nor are there any models
that he can learn from.

- [Narrator] The
kids' food market

is still a young industry.

- You know, there wasn't a
lot of food made for kids,

you know, if you're gonna give
the kids something for lunch,

it was typically like leftovers.

If you're giving them
something for dinner,

you were giving 'em what
the adults were having.

The one kid-friendly
product that's marketed

directly to kids is
breakfast cereal,

and they eat a ton of it.

So Goerke gets the idea,

what if we do the same
thing with canned pasta?

- [Narrator] But first,

Goerke will have to
convince his team.

- Kids don't eat spaghetti.
It's too difficult.

- Great, so let's make something
that's easier for them.

- What would you like us to do?

Design a spaghetti they
can eat with a spoon?

- Kids already know
how to eat soup.

They love their cereal.

Let's give them a spaghetti
they can eat out of a bowl.

- As a child, what
was the first utensil

I ever used consistently?
Easily? A spoon!

- The idea of kids
trying to figure out how

to eat something
that is really messy.

Make it, make it spoonable.

- Come on. This is exciting.
We're gonna reinvent pasta.

- [Narrator] Overseeing the
team is product development

supervisor Ralph Miller.

- Ralph Miller started
at Campbell's in 1950

as an entry-level chemist,

and eventually worked his way
up to oversee a team of chefs,

food scientists and technicians.

- Ralph Miller's got
a huge responsibility

on his shoulders, but he
also has a creative mind.

He's very, very smart.

- [Narrator] To entice
kids to eat pasta,

Miller and his team
experiment with a new idea.

- They wanna make
something fun for kids,

and so they're
experimenting around

with all kinds of shapes.

- [Narrator] They start
with stars, baseballs,

cowboys, and astronauts.

- This idea was
ahead of its time.

Today we're so used to food
coming in unusual shapes,

especially if it's for kids,
whether it be sour patch kids,

or Flintstones vitamins, but
nobody was doing it back then.

- [Narrator] But the task
of creating a precooked,

ready-to-serve,
fun-shaped spaghetti

that's also easy to eat

is proving more challenging
than the team anticipated.

- What, what is this?

- That is an astronaut.

- Or a cowboy?

- I can't sell this. The
shapes need to be fun.

How can they be fun if the
kids can't tell what they are?

- We'll keep working on it.

- To get a pasta that
wouldn't fall apart,

would hold its shape,
is really, really hard.

I mean, you know, that's
landing on a dime, right?

In food composition.

- [Narrator] After nearly
a year of trial and error,

Donald Goerke still doesn't
have a viable product.

- His team's exhausted.
He's losing hope.

Maybe this big idea of his
is just not gonna happen.

- [Narrator] After yet
another failed attempt

to develop a kid-friendly pasta,

one of the development
chefs is cleaning up.

- Kurt Erbeling
was doing dishes,

and he saw how a
strand of spaghetti

curled around into a ring shape.

- [Narrator] A seemingly
insignificant strand of pasta

is about to ignite
a culinary shift,

paving a path that will one
day make Italian cuisine

a cornerstone of
American dining.

- [Narrator] After nearly
a year of trial and error,

Campbell's product development
supervisor Ralph Miller

finally stumbles
onto a pasta shape

that holds together
and is easy to eat.

- What if they just
took regular pasta

and cut it into rings? Genius.

- Tube-shaped pasta has
been around for eons.

Rigatoni, penne, and so on.

So if you just
slice a section off

of that tube shaped
pasta, you have an O,

and structurally it all holds
together and cooks evenly.

- So the O shape, it's
already popular with kids.

I mean, after all,
Cheerios is a hit.

- [Narrator] After
finding the right pasta,

the team's next challenge is
to create the perfect sauce.

- A little too spicy.

- At this point in time,

Americans are
beginning to eat pizza,

which typically has a
sweeter tomato sauce on it.

- [Narrator] And
Pizza Hut has not only

become a national chain,

but has set the standard for
pizza for most Americans.

- There's a big difference
between American palates

and Italian ones.

Americans mainly
like things sweeter.

There's a huge difference
between a traditional

Italian pizza sauce and what
Pizza Hut puts on their pizzas.

(pots bubbling)

- It's, it's too thin.
Can we add more body?

- [Narrator] After months
of experimentation,

Miller adds cheese to his sauce.

- It's not fair to call it
a sauce in a classic sense.

It has a tang, but
it's not sharp.

It has a smoothness,
but it's not creamy.

It has a density to
it, but it's not thick.

- [Narrator] Now
Miller wants to test

their unnamed canned spaghetti
on his toughest critic.

- Are you hungry?
- Yeah.

- [Narrator] His son.

- Great.

Because,

I have a special spaghetti

that I think you're gonna love.

Oh, sorry about that. Yummy.

- [Narrator] While
Miller hopes to get

his son's approval on the taste,

he ends up getting
something more.

- Uh oh. SpaghettiOs.

- Ralph Miller's son
is actually credited

with inspiring a
lot of the marketing

for the early years
of SpaghettiOs.

Starting with the name.

SpaghettiOs took this
very ethnic sounding word,

spaghetti, this Italian word,

and turned it into this very fun
American word, SpaghettiOs.

- [Narrator] Running with
inspiration from Miller's son,

Goerke quickly gets
Campbell's ad agency

to create kid-friendly branding.

- They've got this amazing
little face on the can, right?

This face. Two little eyeballs,

but his eyeballs are made of
the actual SpaghettiOs, right?

And he's got a mouth with
sort of like a tongue.

He's like loving the
SpaghettiO flavor.

- [Narrator] Now the
only thing left to do

is to see if enough kids
respond to make it a hit.

On October 18th,
1965, SpaghettiOs

hit store shelves nationwide,

marketed as the first
spoonable spaghetti.

- So to appeal to moms, they
advertise this as a convenient,

easy-to-prepare food
that's clean, right?

It's not gonna make a mess
like regular spaghetti.

Not only that, they come up
with this catchy tune sung

by this country singer
called Jimmy Rogers.

♪ The neat new spaghetti
you can eat with a spoon ♪

♪ Uh oh, SpaghettiOs!

- I mean, it's really kind
of a perfect, perfect moment.

You just need to
heat it in the pot.

The kids can sing
"uh oh, SpaghettiOs!"

And it's easy to clean
up and delicious.

- [Narrator] SpaghettiOs proved
to be an instant success.

Within weeks, Campbell's
factories go into overdrive

to keep up with demand.

- Kids love it. Moms love it.

SpaghettiOs is a massive hit.

I don't wanna say can't
be kept on the shelves,

but it's almost to that level.

- It's really simple to serve.

You open a can. You warm it up.

A 10-year-old can do this
for her younger siblings.

Kids love it. It's easy.

The convenience of
feeding little kids

with SpaghettiOs was huge,

and it did actually make it
neater to feed a toddler,

because they could use
their little baby spoons

and eat SpaghettiOs.

- [Narrator]
SpaghettiOs will go on

to sell more than 150
million cans each year,

and is credited with
helping to introduce pasta

to American kids.

- SpaghettiOs is the key
to the kingdom, right,

for opening up Italian-
American cuisine

for American's palates.

So Don Goerke and his
team have created this

amazing successful product.

- He was dubbed the
Daddio of SpaghettiOs,

and it really strengthened
the Franco-American brand.

He introduced over 100 products,

and being the leader of
the Franco-American brand

was no longer something
to be embarrassed of.

- [Narrator] After turning
the Franco-American brand

into a moneymaker,

Don Goerke is moved back
to Campbell's soups,

where he goes on to create
the highly successful

Chunky Soup product line.

By 1975, SpaghettiOs
is racking up sales

of $375 million a year.

As the Italian food landscape
continues to slowly expand.

- At this point in time,

you could find
Italian-American restaurants

outside of the major cities
and outside of enclaves,

like Little Italy in
Chicago and New York,

and eventually even
non-Italian restaurants

were beginning to
serve Italian food.

- [Narrator] But
what's often served

isn't actually Italian at all,

especially one wildly popular
new dish, pasta primavera.

- Primavera does not exist
as a pasta dish in Italy.

Pasta primavera is an
American invention.

- In 1977, pasta primavera
is invented in New York City

at one of the most famous
restaurants in New York,

Le Cirque by chef
Alan Siacc.

The idea was we have
all of these vegetables

in the restaurant,
how do we use them up?

It was an ingenious idea.

'Cause one vegetables
are really cheap,

and why not just, you know,
crown it with an Italian name?

- [Narrator] By the eighties,

a new food genre is emerging.

Italian with an
all-American twist.

And Campbell's wants to
cash in on the trend.

Now without Don Goerke,

Ralph Miller gets a new mission.

Launch an Italian food
product that can do for adults

what SpaghettiOs did for kids.

- Miller figured out how
to appeal to baby boomers

as kids with SpaghettiOs,
but now a decade later,

he's gotta figure out how
to win 'em back as adults.

- [Narrator] If he can
make a product for

a more mature demographic,

Miller and his team
could transform

the Italian-American
food market.

[rhythmic music]

- [Narrator] It is 1977
and Campbell's has hired

a new food scientist,
Bill Hildebolt.

- Dr. Bill Hildebolt was
a farm boy from Ohio.

Bill was a little bit gruff,

but his real passion
was food science.

- [Narrator] Hildebolt
is tasked with developing

a new product to recapture
the baby boomer market.

- So if you think about it,
baby boomers have grown up.

They're sophisticated
adults now,

and they want a more
sophisticated food

than SpaghettiOs.

- One night Bill's wife had made

a spaghetti dinner for them,

but when Bill looked
at the dish, he noticed

that there was a line of liquid

around the the heap of pasta,

and that really bothered him,

and he said, I'm going
to make a thicker,

more luxurious tomato sauce.

- Most Americans were not
making their own tomato sauce.

It was still somewhat
foreign and exotic to them.

They would eat canned
sauces from Hunt's and Ragu,

which was starting to grow
its national audience.

- So this is a big
swing for Campbell's.

There are already
two heavy hitter

tomato sauces on the market.

- Hildebolt begins by
examining market leaders,

Hunt's and Ragu,

(suspenseful music)

but is unimpressed
with what he finds.

- They're very thin,
there are no real herbs.

It's just sort of tomatoes and
sugar, a little bit of salt,

not really these robust
tomato sauce flavors

that we think of today.

- Ragu and Hunt's
both used cornstarch

to thicken their sauces.

That impacted the flavor
in a negative way.

They also used extracts of
spices rather than whole spices,

which led to a metallic
flavor in the sauce.

- I can tell you as a
kid who did not grow up

in an Italian-American
household, I remember Ragu.

I will tell you
straight up, God's honest,

that sauce was too thin.

It was really, really thin.

- [Narrator] Hildebolt believes
Ragu and Hunt's are popular

simply because they're the
only options on the market,

and that Campbell's can
offer something better.

- At that point, Americans
didn't have much experience

into what an authentic
tomato sauce tastes like.

Americans are looking
for convenience in

their tomato sauce.

They're not gonna make
it from scratch the way

Italian families
are going to do.

- [Narrator] Hildebolt
decides to pursue

a little firsthand
market research.

- How about Italian for lunch?

- Bill Hildebolt and his
chef visit a local Italian

restaurant to study the flavors
of a real Italian sauce.

(suspenseful music)
(forks clinking)

- Wow.

- It's robust. It is rich.

It's not overly
sweet. It's thick.

It's almost part
of the meal itself,

rather than just a condiment.

It really pops with a flavor
of fresh, fragrant herbs.

Garlic. There's a much more
savory, salty contrast.

- From that point,

he knew that they
needed to put together

a spaghetti sauce that
could go head to head

with something that was created
in an Italian restaurant.

- [Narrator] Unlike the
leading tomato sauce brands,

Campbell's is attempting
to concoct a recipe

that can be mass
produced using only fresh,

whole ingredients.

- One of the sources of pride
in Campbell's Soup Company

was the promise to the
consumers that there would

never be artificial flavors
or thickeners in the products.

They saw that there
was an opportunity,

specifically in spaghetti sauce,

because the competitors
did not have that policy.

- You would think that if
you put delicious stuff in,

delicious stuff comes out,

but actually it's
really, really difficult

not to use additives and
additional ingredients.

- [Narrator] But when the sauce
is tested with focus groups,

Hildebolt and his team
get unexpected feedback

that forces a change.

- Can we go even sweeter?

- What they're
finding and testing

is that American palates
like things a little sweeter.

They might have actually
grown up on SpaghettiOs,

which had a slightly higher
in sugar content tomato sauce.

So in a weird way, they
could be dealing with palates

shaped by SpaghettiOs
themselves.

- The chef said this is
sounding like a dessert sauce,

but he reluctantly
added sugar to it

and had struck the
balance between making it

a little bit sweeter, but
not making it too sweet.

- You can have the best
culinary mind in the world.

You can know what
will taste better,

but it's hard to tell
the American public

that they should be
wanting something else

when they're used to
something different.

- What they learned
from testing was that

the American consumer
was not ready

for an authentically
Italian sauce.

- [Narrator] But before
they have a chance

to make adjustments
to their recipe,

Hildebolt gets devastating
news from Ralph Miller.

- I'm sorry, but it's
not coming from me.

- The board flat out tells
them to stop the project.

- If people only knew what
good tomato sauce tastes like.

They don't even know
what they're missing.

- Do you believe in it?

- I do.

- Then take it underground.

Develop it on your
own in secret.

I'll throw some
resources your way,

but keep it quiet.

- Both of them are
defying a direct order

from their superiors
to scrap the project.

So if this sauce is not the
hit they think it's gonna be,

the project is toast and
so are their careers.

- [Narrator] After
several months of

fine tuning the recipe,

Miller and Hildebolt
are finally ready

to reveal their secret project
to Campbell's executives.

- Campbell's Very
Own Spaghetti Sauce.

- Hildebolt and Miller
are using a lot of time,

a lot of resources, and
a whole lot of money

on something they were
told to scrap ages ago.

- The guys must have thought
they'd win their bosses over

with this dazzling pitch,

but it went over
like a ton of bricks.

- [Narrator] The two
men have one more

trick up their sleeve,
but if it doesn't work,

their careers at Campbell's
might just be over.

- [Narrator] At Campbell's
Ralph Miller has one more

Hail Mary to try.

Convincing executives
to sit down

and taste the new tomato sauce.

- Market research has
our sauce beating Ragu

in a blind taste
test three to one.

- It had a toned-down acidity,

which was one of the keys
to its early successes

with all of the tasters.

What it was was sort of a great
sweet, tart kind of balance.

- Even with Hildebolt and
his team basically working

in secret against the direct
orders of their superiors,

the executives realize they
have a true hit product

on their hands.

- [Narrator] The executives
are won over by the taste

and decide to green light
the spaghetti sauce.

With one exception.

- Campbell's Very
Own Spaghetti Sauce.

This was a terrible name.

- Not only is that a mouthful,

not only is that hard to say,

but all of the upper
management at Campbell's

hated the name.

- They've been putting a lot
of time, a lot of effort,

a lot of money into
trying to come up with

an authentic Italian
tomato sauce,

and they want the
name to reflect that.

Looking through an Italian-
American dictionary,

they saw that the word
Prego means please

and thank you in a very
quick Italian soundbite.

So it's perfect for
a spaghetti sauce.

Easy to ask for, easy to
pronounce, but really Italian.

- Prego sounds authentic.

If I was looking at
three pasta sauces,

I'm gonna want the one that
says, this is authentic.

This is the real deal. Prego.

- [Narrator] In 1981,
Prego hits the shelves

as the first home-
style spaghetti sauce.

- The product launch
is one of the best

product launches of the 1980s.

- [Narrator] Within a
month of its release,

Prego seizes 16% of the
tomato sauce market.

- We had shifted as a culture.

In the eighties we were
thinking about sophistication,

we were thinking
about a wider world,

and Prego said,
I'm part of that.

In the 1980s, the power suit
to wear was Giorgio Armani.

It wasn't Brooks Brothers.

That was your
father's generation,

and this was the pasta sauce
to go with that kind of spirit.

- The name Prego, that word,
which was just two syllables,

easy for English speaking
Americans to pronounce

and made them feel like
they were maybe a little bit

cultured, a little exotic,

and they could get that in
a jar on the grocery shelf.

- [Narrator] In tandem with
their new product release,

Campbell's airs a
series of iconic ads.

- I used to think spaghetti
sauce was spaghetti sauce,

but you know. when you see
Prego and Ragu side by side,

the difference
really comes through.

- The ad campaign is a
comparison between Ragu

and the essentially
chunkiness of Prego.

- Essentially what they're
depicting in the ad

is that Ragu is too
thin and falls through

various implements like
the spoon and spaghetti,

because it does.

- [Narrator] But Prego's
aggressive ad campaign

has raised the ire of
industry leader Ragu.

- Have you heard about this?

Ragu's trying to sue us.

- Ragu sees this new ad
campaign as a threat,

and ultimately sues Campbell's.

- Now, Ragu is
saying that this is,

well, you just can't do that.

This is defamation of
pasta sauce character.

- Good. That means
we're winning.

(impactful music)

- Prego is a thicker sauce

and stands up to
scrutiny in the lawsuit.

- [Narrator] The court
rules in Prego's favor,

and in the first year alone,

Prego rakes in over a hundred
million dollars in sales

and captures 28% of
the pasta sauce market,

eventually overtaking Ragu

to become the number one
pasta sauce in America.

- The launch of Prego really
showed the American people

that they can access
Italian-American foods.

- [Narrator] Next,
Campbell's releases

a Prego Italian recipe
book with dishes

that can be prepared
using its product.

- People all over the country
are now cooking dishes

that were once only
found in Italian homes

or Italian restaurants.

- It's not like SpaghettiOs,

which is one simple
meal in a can.

You could use it on
spaghetti, on lasagna,

veal or chicken parmesan.

I mean, it was the
jar on the shelf

that could create
20 different meals.

It's very, very versatile.

- [Narrator] As families
across the country

embrace Italian-
American cuisine,

another food giant
spies opportunity.

The newly appointed
chairman of General Mills,

H. Brewster Atwater, is
looking for any opportunity

to drive sales for his
growing conglomerate.

- In the 1980s General
Mills is a juggernaut.

They have the number one
cereal in America, Cheerios.

They have Wheaties, they
have Gold Medal flour.

They even expand into
the restaurant business

and acquire Red Lobster, and
turn it into a mega chain.

- Bruce Atwater was smart,

personable, intimidating

as chairman of the board

of General Mills, but fair.

And Bruce had a vision to say,

let's go make General
Mills the biggest

conglomerate in America.

- This looks fine.

No changes.

- [Narrator] Working to
achieve Atwater's vision

is his director of new concept
development, Blaine Sweat.

- At the time to make an impact,

what General Mills was
looking for was the concept

that could grow to be a
billion dollars in sales.

Huge number.

And a gentleman
named Blaine Sweat,

one of the smartest
guys out there,

who was a creative
entrepreneurial guy

working for General Mills
came along and said,

I have an idea.

- Think Red Lobster, but
spaghetti and meatballs.

- The popularity of
Prego helped make

Italian-American
food more accessible.

It was something people
were, were buying more of.

The pizza sector had exploded.

You had chains like
Domino's and Pizza Hut,

but there wasn't anything
really on a national level

that was a sit down, casual,
family-style restaurant.

So they set about
to come up with

and develop a new restaurant
that would fill that space.

- Okay, let's find an existing
chain and acquire them.

- We can't, that's the
thing, they don't exist.

I know this is gonna
sound crazy. What if,

what if we created our own?

- Our own what?

- Restaurant chain.

Design it ourselves, build
it from the ground up.

- He decides he is
going to find a way

to make Italian food accessible
to the entire nation,

create a nationwide chain,

and keep it somewhat authentic
and somewhat Americanized.

- General Mills said,
if we're gonna put money

into a concept,

it has to be able to
have the potential

to grow to be a billion dollars.

- I'll give you carte blanche.

I have one condition.
Don't screw it up.

- Blaine said, okay, I
need to find some people

who really can help me do this.

- [Narrator] Not only does
Sweat not know the first thing

about Italian-American food,

he's never launched
a restaurant before,

let alone a nationwide chain.

- He wants to go from zero
to a hundred locations

across the country,
basically instantly.

That, in a word, is risky.

- [Narrator] It is
1981 and Blaine Sweat

is assembling a
handpicked team to develop

an Italian restaurant
concept for General Mills.

- Okay guys, everybody
gather round.

- They assemble an
elite strike force.

- [Narrator] The team consists

of operations
mastermind Mark Given.

- Mark Given, he had
been at Red Lobster

and had run operations.

- [Narrator] Italian
chef, Gino DeSantis.

- Gino was the culinary guy,

straight off the boat
from Italy,

had all his mom's recipes.

- The last person
was this poor guy

that they pull out of accounting
and they basically say,

you're the chief taster,
you are the bookkeeper

and you're gonna
wash all the dishes.

- [Narrator] And
accountant Dave Manuchia.

- I was a financial guy
and I sort of kept,

kept everybody in
line a little bit.

- Alright, we are
going to be spending

a lot of time together,
nights, weekends,

whatever it takes, and I can't
give any of you guys raises.

If this doesn't work out,

we are probably all
going to get fired.

So if this isn't for you,

I understand. Now would
be the time to leave.

(suspenseful music)

Are you in?

- What General Mills is
doing is pretty bold.

The traditional model is
you start a restaurant,

you build a following,

and then when that
following hits a threshold,

you open location number
two, maybe number three,

but to create a chain from
scratch, it's not easy.

- [Narrator] Italian chef
Gino DeSantis gets to work

preparing potential dishes
to be put on the menu.

- We were inventing a taste
that would be acceptable

to a wide variety of Americans.

So it was a bigger challenge.

We'd lay out 15 pans of lasagna,

take a bite, spit it out,
take a bite, spit it out,

until we found one
that we felt like,

okay, that one's pretty good.

We did the same thing
with every recipe.

We made changes to the
red sauce, to the lasagna,

to the Alfredo sauce.

- [Narrator] Traditional
Alfredo sauce

is made using only butter,
parmesan cheese and pasta water,

stirred by hand until it
becomes a creamy emulsion.

Instead, the team uses an
ingredient not commonly used

in Italian cuisine to mimic
the texture and flavor

without the elbow grease,

cream.

- Real Alfredo sauce doesn't
have any cream in it,

but if you ask any
American today,

they would most likely
tell you that it does.

- They also let go of Italian
foreign sounding ingredients

like capers, and
instead they use terms

like Italian dumplings
instead of gnocchi,

which is hard to
pronounce for Americans

and doesn't really
tell you what it is.

- They also had their
cooks make decisions

like overcooking the
pasta for about a minute.

So it matched this
texture of a SpaghettiO

more than it did an
actual Italian pasta dish.

- They're moving away from
really serving Italian cuisine

and instead creating a
new kind of hybrid genre

of Italian-American,
mass-produced cuisine.

- [Narrator] To test the
concept's national appeal

and serve as the chain's
first restaurant location,

they select a city where
Americans from every corner

of the nation travel to
visit, Orlando, Florida.

- It's brilliant. If you
want to test the most Americans

in the most agreeable
frame of mind,

cross-section of travelers,
cross-section of spenders,

people who are
there with families

and need to eat full meals.

If you want to test a concept,

Orlando is the perfect city.

- So we took over a restaurant
down on International Drive

called The Green Frog.

- They begin to add terracotta
tiles, the stucco walls,

and they're, they're recreating
this idea of a Tuscan villa.

- They even come up
with the perfect name,

a name that would call
to mind Tuscan hillsides

and things that are
naturally abundant in Italy.

- The name was Olive Tree.

- [Narrator] But just
days before opening-

[phone ringing]

- This is Blaine.

What are you talking about?
What's the matter with it?

- [Narrator] The team is thrown
an unexpected curve ball.

(receiver snaps into cradle)

(exasperated sighs)

- [Narrator] It's 1982, just
days before the grand opening

of General Mills new chain
restaurant, The Olive Tree.

When the team receives
devastating news.

- They want us to
change the name.

The Olive Tree's taken.

- Back in the day,
there were no computers.

So at General Mills
headquarters in Minneapolis,

they had a room that literally
had 5,000 telephone books.

So somebody looked through
all the telephone books

to see if there were any other
Olive Trees in the country.

There was one in California

and the owner of that trademark

wasn't willing to give it up.

So we had to call the
sign company and say,

you can't do Olive Tree.

- [Narrator] With time running
out before the grand opening,

the team is forced to go
with an alternate name.

- General Mills said in
the interest of freshness

and abundance, what if
we call it Olive Garden?

And everybody said, olives
don't grow in gardens.

It doesn't matter.

- Olive Garden opens its
doors on December 13th, 1982,

but opening night gets
off to a rocky start.

- Guys, table six has been
waiting for almost an hour.

- We were way busier
than we ever expected.

That as the printer
in the kitchen

kept spinning out tickets,

Mark Given would hold
the tickets in his hand

and not give them to the cooks

because they were overwhelmed.

So as a result, the guest
was getting a little antsy

about how long it was
taking to get the food out.

- First impressions
mean everything

in the restaurant business.

You need open night
to go smoothly,

or you'll be closed in a week.

When a customer has
a good experience,

they might tell
one or two people.

When they have a bad
experience, they tell ten.

(kitchen sounds)

- Breadsticks.

Grace, take this to table six.

Keep them coming, as
many as they want.

Alright? Hold on, salads, too.

- Let's give them more bread.
Let's give them more salad.

Let's give them free cokes,

which was unheard
of at the time,

and that kept the servers
from having to apologize.

But it also kept the guests
going, wow, this place is great.

Otherwise, we would've crumbled.

- [Narrator] What starts out
as an opening night solve

becomes the Olive Garden's
most recognizable signature.

- Olive Garden was one
of the first chains

to market the idea of unlimited.

Unlimited breadsticks,
unlimited salad,

and it gave everybody
the idea of value.

- As soon as you come in,
boom, breadsticks, enjoy,

let go, have lots of
yummy, doughy, bready,

pasta-y, saucy things.

And at the end we hope you
come back and people did.

- It covered up a
lot of the mistakes

that we were trying to
figure out in the early days,

and it turned out to be the
signature of Olive Garden,

now for 40 plus years.

- [Narrator] Spurred
by the runaway success

of their test location,

General Mills races
to open new locations

across the country.

And by 1989, Olive
Garden has opened

close to 150 restaurants,

becoming General Mills'
fastest-growing business,

further establishing
a new food genre,

Italian with an American twist.

- We were competing
against every authentic

Italian restaurant in
every town in America,

and we weren't authentic
Italian, and we knew it.

- [Narrator] By the
end of the eighties,

a poll is conducted
by Restaurants

and Institutions Magazine
on the tastes of America,

and more than 70%
of Americans report

that when eating out
they choose Italian food.

- Olive Garden helped ensure

that Italian-American
food is available

at every corner of
the United States.

- When I was editor
of Food and Wine,

when we put Italy on the cover,

when we put a pasta
dish on the cover,

it would always be
a bestselling cover.

That's just how Americans feel.

I think people think of,

of pasta as something

that is actually

quintessentially American,

even though it's Italian.

- [Narrator] Around the world,

720 million SpaghettiOs are
consumed every single day.

- Amazingly, it's not
until 2004 that Campbell's

finally puts their
name on the can.

Campbell's SpaghettiOs.

But Franco-American can
still be found on the back.

- [Narrator] Today,
Prego is the front runner

in a billion-dollar
spaghetti sauce industry.

- Look at how much shelf space

tomato sauce gets
at a grocery store.

It's bigger than soups,

it's bigger than
apple pie, it's huge.

- [Narrator] And Olive
Garden is the biggest

Italian-American restaurant
chain in the world,

with 893 locations generating
$3.3 billion annually

and serving 529 million
breadsticks a year.

That's 1.6 breadsticks
for every US resident.

- The explosion of the interest
in Italian-American cuisine

wasn't just pizza, it was
about going out for pasta

and lasagna and tiramisu
and veal piccata and

and all of these
terrific things.

We fell in love
with Italian food,

and I don't think we've ever
fallen out of love with it.