Red Gold: We want to be the best, not the biggest

The largest privately held tomato products manufacturer in the US - making canned tomatoes, pasta & pizza sauces, ketchup, salsa and juices - Red Gold recently spent a large chunk of cash on upgrades to the high-speed salsa and pasta sauce bottling line at its Geneva facility.

However, large sums have also been pumped into facilities in Elwood and Orestes, Indiana, says new media manager Colt Reichart, who says the company’s mantra has always been ‘We want to be the best, not the biggest’.

While the firm’s consumer brands Red Gold, Redpack, Tuttorosso, and Sacramento are doing well, it is also doing a lot of business in the private label retail space and in the foodservice market.

Red Gold is winning market share in the large - but fairly flat - canned tomatoes and ketchup categories, he says, but growing much faster in the salsa and pasta sauce segments, where there has been a lot more activity lately.

It also works closely with the Research Chefs Association (RCA) and the Ivy Tech Community College of Indiana to stay ahead of the trends and explore ways of reducing sodium without compromising flavor, while a relentless focus on taking cost out of the business has extended to re-evaluating all of its recipes to see where savings can be made without impacting the attributes consumers are looking for from a sensory perspective.