Volpi Foods - 118 year old family business of Lombard origin in St. Louis

Volpi Foods - Patience and Passion Since 1902

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VOLPI CRAFTS FOOD WITH CARE

We’re the only midwestern specialty foods company that makes our own dry-cured meats, letting nature perfect each flavor in our family’s authentic recipes. There are no shortcuts or artificial processes. We let nature take its time to bring our foods to their delicious peak with fresh local meats and few ingredients.

Volpi is mindful of what goes into our foods so that you can feel good about eating them.

visit VolpiFoods.com for more


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Our Heritage

In 1898, John Volpi arrived in America from his home in Milan, Italy, bringing with him little more than a craft and a vision. Having learned from his elders the ancient European art of dry curing, John had a dream of importing the centuries-old traditions across the ocean—thus continuing to serve his customers once they migrated to America.

Four years later, in 1902, he opened Volpi Foods at the intersection of two dirt roads in the St. Louis neighborhood known as The Hill. There, he created cacciatore—dried salami small enough to fit into the pockets of the local clay miners. He used only local ingredients and suppliers and dried the meats using the same method he’d learned in Italy: opening and shutting windows to control the temperature and humidity of the air that circulated throughout the room. The response to John’s exquisite craftsmanship was overwhelming. He soon added delicacies such as prosciutto, guanciale, pancetta, and coppa.

As demand grew, John expanded both his products and his personnel, recruiting his fourteen-year-old nephew, Armando Pasetti, from Italy. His new apprentice traveled by boat to his new home in America lived upstairs from the shop and learned the business just as his uncle had: from the bottom-up.

Armando swept the floors, tied sausages, and eventually, mastered every aspect of his uncle’s craft—right down to the opening and closing of the windows.

In 1957, upon John’s passing, Armando took the helm of the company, which was now a thriving business. In 1980, he continued to meet consumer demand by bringing Volpi Foods national and enlisted his daughter to help run the manufacturing plant. An eager pupil, Lorenza studied first-hand the techniques behind Volpi’s premium meats—and supplemented her culinary expertise with an MBA from Washington University.

In 2002, exactly 100 years after John Volpi opened his business, Armando passed the torch to Lorenza. Now, as president of Volpi Foods, Lorenza continues to refine her great-uncle’s craft—while adhering to the techniques he brought with him to America more than a century ago. Volpi Foods still relies exclusively on local suppliers. It still dries its meats by adjusting the temperature and humidity of natural airflows. It still prides itself on satisfying consumer needs. And it still sells cacciatore from its storefront in The Hill.


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Lidia's Italy in America with Volpi Foods

volpifoods

Lidia's Italy in America stops by Volpi Foods in Saint Louis.


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Our Home

At Volpi Foods, we continue to improve on our traditions as we move forward to keep pace with our customers.

Our home remains on The Hill in St. Louis. There, as long-standing members of the community, we’ve been serving generations of meat lovers from the same storefront for more than 110 years. We also follow our customers, distributing Volpi Foods to locations throughout the country. And whenever those customers come back to The Hill, we’re ready to help them recapture the taste of the “old neighborhood.”

We prepare our meats in the same facility John Volpi opened in 1902, although we’ve added two more since then. Our meat is still sourced here in the Midwest. All of our farmers are within two hundred miles of our facilities, and all of our meat arrives within forty-eight hours of slaughter. As a result, our meat is the freshest anywhere. Plus, our pork has the ideal pH level to ferment naturally, which means we don’t steal flavor or nutrients by over-processing. Instead, we tolerate only the most minimal processing, allowing nature to take its course, and letting the natural flavors in the pork blossom.

Each of our facilities—Uno, Due, and Tre—comes with its own climate, humidity, and airflow. The conditions of each are paired with certain products, so we plan accordingly. They cure salami and other deli products in Uno, prosciutto and specialty items in Due, and Primo and Prep products in Tre. Our craftsmen continually adjust the conditions of each room, ensuring that all of our salume is prepared to perfection, and in the most natural way possible—individually, and by hand.


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Milanese heritage

"The Hill" in St. Louis was long ago a "Little Lombardy" in particular, and is still a mostly Italian neighborhood. Actually, the Lombard community was specifically from the Milano province. The Lombard community still in San Rafael, California also has it's roots specifically from the Milano province, and was also one of the dozen "Little Lombardys" from a century ago.

I purchased Volpi mortadella meat from Safeway in Daly City yesterday, without any knowledge of Volpi Foods. I saw they were in St. Louis, and I suspected the possible connection. What I also liked is that there are no nitrates or gluten.

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News segment on "The Hill"... initially a post-Civil War Milanese district in St. Louis

Nine Network YouTube channel

KETC - Living St. Louis - The Hill: What's Old and New 

From KETC, LIVING ST. LOUIS Producer Margie Newman takes a closer look at The Hill—a neighborhood in South St. Louis that was started by Italian immigrants in the 19th century. Today, the area has numerous Italian restaurants and markets, creating a tight-knit community.

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The Hill in it's early decades, starting about 1882, had a specifically Milanese identity with immigrants from the province of Milano. The St. Ambrose Church, modeled after the famous Ambrosian church in Milan, stands as a reminder of that period. The Hill is part of our Lombard history in this country.

Great short. However, the idea one gets is that Italy just pushed its people away. Well, we also know US mines and firms had agents all over Europe to woo cheap manpower. One is also inclined to believe that Sicilians built ther Hill. For once Lombards were the first ones there. E. g. Hill's Yogi Berra, Joe Garagiola, Midge Berra hailed from Cuggiono. Of course the blend Lombard-Sicilians made a memorable Hill, but Lombards were the first. Why conceal it? St. Ambrose is the patron of Milan.
--arnatese1, YouTube user

Obviously, this is a "feel good" segment.. about how everyone is happy and everything is working out for the best. The Hill, or any neighborhoods like it, are really now just small fragile communities in a tireless world of big money, big politics, and mass movements of people. The Hill reminds me of North Beach. As the saying goes, you can't have your cake and eat it too.

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Panthers prowling around northern Italy

Panthers prowling around northern Italy

Bobby Tanzilo's Blog - OnMilwaukee.com - August 3, 2010

The UW-Milwaukee Panthers announced a slate of four games in northern Italy this month. I held out hope they'd be going to Casale Monferrato, but it's not happening.

I often check the back pages of Il Monferrato, the Italian newspaper that's delivered to my house and for which I've written on a few occasions. That's where they keep the basketball coverage. Although Casale always has at least a couple American players, I've yet to see any with a Milwaukee connection.

When I heard the Panthers were headed to northwest Italy, I thought maybe these worlds would collide.

(There are a few other connections between Casale and Milwaukee, like the DeGiovanni family from Casale, which runs the Golosi gelateria in Oconomowoc; the Zerand company in New Berlin is owned by Casale-based Cerutti; Casale's Buzzi Unicem cement company has a small depot in the Valley across 6th Street from the Harley Museum; and Waukesha's Rose Glen School students have long had a pen pal relationship with a school in Casale, too.

The Panthers, instead, will play Lombardia of the B2 league on Aug. 18. Next they head to Livorno, on the Tuscan coast, to play that city's B2 team on Aug. 20.

Then they head back north to the region of Lombardy to face the Serie A2 team from Treviglio, a town I've only seen from the train on the way to visit my cousins in Bergamo, on Aug. 21. UWM wraps up its tour on Aug. 23 against another B2 squad, Brianza Select, from Brianza (another city in Lombardy).

Milwaukee isn't a city with a lot of Italian-Americans with Lombardian roots. For that you've got to head to St. Louis, where two of the greatest Lombardian-American sports figures -- Yogi Berra (with roots in Cuggiono) and Joe Garagiola (Inveruno) -- were neighbors as boys.

I hope the Panthers play some great basketball in Italy, but I also hope they get time to look around, taste the food, meet the people and have a great time getting to know one of the loveliest parts of the world.

And when they get back, I hope they kick some butt when their season starts.

My advice for them in Italy: while in the neighborhood, stop in and check out the Milwaukee 50's Diner in Varedo. And tell 'em we said howdy.

You can follow the Panthers' escapes in Italy via the team blog.

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