FOOD BEVERAGE

FOOD & BEVERAGE A MENU OF NEW IDEAS

LaRosa’s updates its supply sources to align better with customer tastes.

—SARAH M. MULLINS

LaRosa’s Pizzeria founder Buddy LaRosa has been famous across the region for his motto: Good, better, best. Never let it rest until your good is better and your better best. Even though his sons Mike and Mark LaRosa are now at the company helm, the motto still informs all business decisions. Mark and his three-person research and development team rolled out a series of new products in 2021, including hydroponic lettuce and plant-based options.

to arrive in refrigerated trucks. Deliveries now happen every other day and use 95 percent less fuel, making the process much more sustainable. The Indiana greenhouses are temperature controlled with little human interaction—picture robots tending to the crops, and when humans do enter the glass-enclosed facilities they’re fully protected head to toe. Because FRESH MIDWESTERN GREENS the produce is grown indoors, no pesticides Access to produce, specifically romaine and or herbicides are used on the plants. “We have iceberg lettuce, started to become inconsistent been using this product since the beginning in recent years for LaRosa’s, which Mark attri- of 2021, and delivery after delivery it’s been butes to food contamination, weather-related so consistent,” says LaRosa. “It’s crisp, fresh, quality issues, and the pandemic’s supply chain vibrant, hearty, and green every single time.” strains. “We go through a significant amount of salad,” he says. “And we just saw the amount of the occurrences of inferior quality coming our way. Sixty-six restaurants can’t turn in 66 different directions, so we just kept seeing this pressure.”

LaRosa’s innovation team considered several options for a new supplier and ultimately landed on Pure Green Farms, a company that’s only 200 miles away in South Bend, Indiana.

Lettuce had been shipped from the West coast, often from California depending on the growing season, and would take 10–14 days

Good, Better, Best Mark (left) and Mike LaRosa aren’t content with business as usual, changing their greens supplier to an Indiana greenhouse (below). DAIRY- AND MEAT-FREE OPTIONS Market research revealed that a significant portion of LaRosa’s customers were interested in non-dairy and meatless food options, and Mark says his team started experimenting with vegan cheese. “It wasn’t that they were bad,” he says, “but for a traditional, provolone-based company it was hard to find something we felt good about offering.” After evaluating hundreds of options of cheese and proteins, they landed on a selection that launched in test stores: dairy-free cheese and plant-based pepperoni, chicken, and sausage.

Research is in the post-launch phase, evaluating and learning how customers are accepting the new products. LaRosa says they’ve received overwhelmingly positive reviews, but there’s always something to improve. “R&D and product development is a never-ending job,” he says. “Thanksgiving, Christmas, and New Year’s are our busiest time of the year, so we’ll be monitoring and evaluating the products’ performance and quality. Then we’ll reconvene and ask, OK, what’s our next opportunity? What’s the next horizon we can set our sights on? And we’ll start down the road again.”