Inside La Cucina Creativa: Capabilities that empower everyday cooking

Great food starts with strong consumer insights.

That thinking is at the heart of La Cucina Creativa, our new state-of-the-art R&D kitchen located at our Camden headquarters. The kitchen is designed to accelerate innovation across our Italian & Frozen portfolio of brands.

"As consumers' tastes and expectations evolve, we're investing in the capabilities that help us listen, learn and respond. La Cucina Creativa gives our people a dedicated space to turn what we're learning into the food experiences families are looking for at home." - Ken Bopp, Vice President, R&D

From artisan-style pizzas to chef-inspired entrées and bowls, La Cucina Creativa helps our teams bring restaurant-quality flavor, texture and authenticity into everyday kitchens.

At the center of the space is an Italian brick oven capable of reaching temperatures up to 950°F, enabling our teams to develop premium pizzas and other Italian-inspired food experiences. The kitchen also features advanced culinary and commercial equipment that can replicate how we make our food and package it.

These capabilities include:

• Conventional and convection ovens
• Blanchers, fryers, and char broilers
• A tray and bowl sealer
• A blast freezer
• Steam-jacketed kettles

The kitchen also features the appliances needed to recreate our iconic Rao's Homemade® sauce.

A dedicated collaboration space, anchored by a 12-foot reclaimed wood tasting table, gives cross-functional teams and consumers a place to evaluate, refine and elevate food experiences together. By bringing consumer feedback closer to culinary development, our teams can learn quickly and make more informed decisions throughout the innovation process.

La Cucina Creativa is an investment in our people, our capabilities and our continued focus on the consumer. It strengthens how we collaborate and helps our teams turn insights into distinctive, high-quality food that empowers everyday cooking.