Italian food is always better when made from scratch, right? You can forgive fans of Mama Mancini’s meatballs for suggesting differently. This emerging brand’s packaged meatballs and red sauce, as well as a range of other Italian-American products, are easy to prepare—just heat and serve—and often burst with the flavors of slow-simmered sauces and well-spiced meatballs, sausages, and chicken.
The range includes family-style meals and on-the-go cups. Appetito sampled many of the items, and found them surprisingly delicious, from the fluffy turkey meatballs to a hearty bowl of chicken cacciatore. All of the products are available on Mama Mancini’s website, in supermarkets nationwide, and on QVC, where founder Dan Mancini frequently shows up to surprise guests with the high quality of his creations.
Intrigued, we had to jump on a Zoom with Mancini to find out the story behind his growing brand, as well as ask about his intriguing resume. Before he became a meatball mastermind, Mancini had a successful career in the garment industry, even a stint as president of Ultra Pink, the once-trendy teen girl apparel brand.
Then, he had an idea, and a grandma’s recipe, that would change his life. Here’s our Q&A with Mancini, edited for clarity.
How would you rate the popularity of Italian food in America today?
It's pretty safe to say everyone loves Italian food. If you had six people planning to go out to dinner, and you named five different [types of] restaurants, I guarantee you one that everyone can agree on.
You’re from Brooklyn, right?
Yes, Dyker Heights. Back then, we all called that whole area Bay Ridge.
How did your upbringing inspire Mama Mancini’s?
I never got to meet my grandfather. He passed away before I was born. At that point, we all kind of moved in with my grandmother. And as it turns out, like in a lot of different cultures, my grandmother took care of all of us with her food and her good nature with other people. So, what I remembered as I traveled through life was every time my grandmother cooked—and it truly was seven nights a week; I don't remember going out to dinner—the house filled up with friends and neighbors, especially on Sunday. I learned later in life, a lot of the people that we called aunt and uncle truly weren't aunts or uncles. They were just friends of the family. Everybody was your aunt or your uncle, so it was just that feeling of, “Wow, this is like, so comfortable.” It was just a comforting feeling when we had that dinner together, especially on Sundays, that I saved my whole life, and that's what led to starting this company.
Let’s come back to Mama Mancini’s and talk about the detour you took into fashion as a young man.
When I was in college, I was working for Abraham & Strauss in Brooklyn. Remember them? I was in the executive training program. I love retail. I love being around people. So I started at Abraham & Strauss, and I went to Gimbels. Then I went to Alexander’s. My friends tell me all the time that I was the reason all three of them went out of business.
How did you come to work at Ultra Pink?
I was approached by someone who said, “We're launching a junior company. Want to join it? It's called Ultra pink.” Nothing [like it] existed, and I loved that. That was around 1986. And I stayed there for 12 years. When 2008 began, when the economy was starting to fall apart, everything was crumbling, and I would travel in on the train with all my friends and they're all upset [about the economy], I would say to them, “You know, I think we just need to go back to the old days where we all sat around the dinner table and we just, like, chilled." And that's when it hit me. I said, “I’ve got to get out of the garment business." It was very tough. What can I do? And I remembered when my grandmother brought out the meatballs and the sauce, everything was good, and I realized you could not find a real meatball in the supermarket at that time.
What were the options for packaged meatballs?
Everything was what I call the lab project in the frozen bag. As an Italian, you looked at that and you said, these aren't meatballs. I mean, there's like 700 ingredients, of which, you know, 699 I can't pronounce. And you can find good sauce right in the sauce aisle, but I said, you just can't find it together. And I had this thought, well, what if I found a way to take grandma's recipe—a simple, old-school recipe with real ingredients—and bring it to the market? Maybe it'll help people find a quick dinner, a good dinner, something they're proud to put on the table. And maybe—and this may be a crazy idea—but I find a way to help bring back the family dinner. And truly that what was what it was about; I never thought it would become what it is today.
I would imagine there's a steep learning curve to learn how to mass produce meatballs and sauce, and make them into a good that can be shipped around the country. Did you just pick it up on the fly?
I had a neighbor who was in the food business, and I approached him. I always believe, if you want to be successful, surround yourself with people who are really good at what they do, because you can't do everything. But I had the idea, and I had the passion. So I partnered with someone. I was very fortunate that, you know, I connected with someone who had the ability to do it and respected the recipe.
But what's the reality of this, this world of, like, consumer packaged goods? Is it harder than it looks? How would you describe it?
I don't think anything's easy, especially in the food business, because there's so much competition. And when you walk into a supermarket, if you're going to bring something to them, you have to first understand where it belongs, and is there even space for it, and why do they want it? We were fortunate, because no one did what we did. So it was new. But, you know, people love, right now, prepared foods. We're predominantly in the deli department. And you can go to a frozen aisle and buy some Italian food or any food, but you bring it home, you put it in your freezer, and then you come home from work that day to feed your family, and you're like, oh, man, I should have put this out yesterday; it's frozen solid, or this is going to take two hours to heat up.
The fresh area, which is the prepared deli department, makes it easy for people and families. You can go in, pick up something, take it home, get the kids to do their homework or whatever, and in 15 to 20 minutes, you'll have a meal on the table. Heat up the meatballs in a pot, make some pasta in eight minutes and boom! I don't think anything's easy to do these days. You just have to be passionate about it and believe in it, and understand you're going to stumble a lot, but just get back up.
You’ve really expanded from meatballs to turkey meatballs, sausage and peppers, a range of panini, and now, microwaveable cups of chicken cacciatore and other options, which are quick lunch meals, right? They’re very good.
Thank you. I appreciate you saying that. Like anything we bring to market, it truly starts with either a grandmother’s recipe or inspiration from what I believe she would do. Clearly, she didn't make turkey meatballs [laughs]. The sausage and pepper is really interesting. We wanted to have sausage and peppers on our menu for many years, but we couldn't find sausages that weren't made with nitrates and dyes and when we tasted them, I’d say, You know what? This just doesn't taste like what my grandmother would serve, or what we were able to buy in the local Italian market. So fast forward, I want to say about four years ago, we were able to [get it right]. First of all, the sausages are legit, right? I mean, there's none of that junk in it. The peppers and the onions we roast in our ovens. And then the sauce, which everyone loves, is tomato, garlic, bay leaf, basil, and no added sugar. There's, you know, none of that in it. And when you cook this all together, you get the same experience if you were to make it in your home or to go to the San Gennaro Feast.
Tell us more about the turkey meatballs, which have become one of the breakout products in the Mama Mancini’s line.
The turkey meatball, we introduced early on, but it was kind of stumbling a little bit because it's [not a beef] meatball. Then, 10 years ago, I got on QVC, which was a dream of mine, even back from the garment center. I went on, and we sold out of the beef meatballs in five of the eight minutes they gave me. And then we started getting consumer feedback from the QVC shopper, which is national, right? It was the first time we were able to hear from everybody, and they said, “Hey, you ever think about doing a lighter version, a turkey meatball? I don't eat beef” or whatever. We tested the recipe, and we tested it for a while. It was always too dry or too strong tasting. It took probably two full years, and then we perfected the recipe, and it has the onions and all these same ingredients in the beef meatball. I tasted it, and I looked up, and I said, "Grandma, you would approve this." So, we bring it to QVC, and I have to tell you, every time I go on QVC, people taste the turkey meatball, and the first thing they say is, "I'm blown away by this." It shocks people. It shocked me when I first did it.
Can you tell us about why you wanted to be on QVC, and anything else about the sales philosophy?
As I was just saying earlier, my dream was always to go on QVC. I love to be able to connect with millions of people at one time. We brought the meatballs up to QVC. We met with the buyer, and the first thing she said to me was, “Dan, I’ve got to be honest with you. We've had meatballs on in the past, and they have failed. So, I just want to warn you.” I said, OK, and she tried the meatball, and she heard the story. So, she gave me my shot. We went on QVC [and I told the story of it being my grandmother’s recipe], we were sold out in five minutes. I almost fell over. We probably have about 10 to 12 items on QVC now.
It sounds like QVC was a turning point. Since the story is such a key to the brand, can you talk more about your grandmother and how people connected to the story behind the products? Did you ever think that this story is going to resonate with other people, or was it just something very personal to you?
No, I thought, at the time in 2008, somebody needs stories, and everybody has a grandmother, and you'd be hard pressed to find anyone who doesn't love their grandmother. We launched the product at the Fancy Food Show, and I was with the parent company, and they sell appetizers. We had a crock pot. That's all we had. It was a big display of the appetizers and everything they were selling, and I would say to people, “Hey, would you like to try a meatball?” They’d say, “No.” This went on. I finally said, “Would you like to try my grandmother's meatball?” And the first person said, “How do you say no to that?” It’s a true story. Then there was another turning point. It was 2009, April 4, I ended up on the Martha Stewart show. I did the first 30 minutes, and she put me on because she loved the story. She loved the idea of a grandma recipe and this kind of crazy guy from the garment business who is now going to try to sell his meatballs and sauce. And I'll never forget this. I'm standing next to Martha, we're making the meatballs, and she says, “Daniel Mancini has this passion to bring back the family dinner with his grandmother's meatballs,” and she held up the retail package. And when I look back at the video, I still remember, I think I almost passed out, and I said, "This is for real."
