Chef Giuseppe Fortuna

My Story and Journey

Hi, I'm Chef Giuseppe and I thank you for trusting me in your sauce adventure. My story in the world of Italian Sauce is something I take great pride in, it's who I am, who I've been, and who I continue to be. I was born in Calabria Italy, in 1961, and as you can imagine, cooking was at the heartbeat of my childhood. My mother, Teresa, is the best cook I've ever met in my life, and she is who taught me how to make sauce, as well as give me the recipe for all of our sauces. Now, one thing to understand is that in Italy food isn't just "food," it's form of art, passion, and we take great pride in everything food related.

My childhood in Calabria, Italy

As I grew up and continued to be surrounded by massive Italian family gatherings that looked something like this. My father Filip and I would wake up early in the morning, walk to our garden and gather our Tomatoes, cucumbers, basil, and figs. After a few hours of gathering our prized vegetables we would had back home and give these ingredients to my mother and from there, the magic would start. Teresa, would write about the cooking process.

Heading to the U.S for the American Dream

In the 1980's my family and I headed to the United States with the following: My father, mom, three sisters, and one suitcase. That's all we had to our name and my family decided to do this in order to help the future generations of Fortuna find prosperity and a better life. Well, this is where all of my studying and learning from my mother began to pay off.

As you can imagine coming to the United States as a teenager and not knowing one word of english was very challenging, it was actually heart breaking. Unlike today in 2023 where learning different languages is considered an essential trait, in the 1980's it was actually frowned upon. My teachers in school would no longer call me "Giuseppe" and told me that I'm now Joe, my Italian heritage was in the process of being diminished but my faith was too strong to allow this. Fast forward four years and I attended Johnson and Wales University which is known to be one of the best culinary arts universities in the country, I guess you can say, not bad for a teenager who didn't know any english a few years prior.

At Johnson and Wales university I learned from my professors the American Culinary way and took my Italian upbringing, for a mixed formula that lead me become one of the best chefs in my graduating class. As I was in college one thing began quickly apparent to me, my classmates would buy canned tomato sauce and it was like I was witnessed a UFO land in front of me, I couldn't understand any of the ingredients, even in Italy we wouldn't feed these sauces to our horses.

We created the change we wanted to see

Well, my mother and I began making our own sauce, with actual ingredients that we would use in Italy. There was a very clear issue in the market that we saw, which was the ingredients used in sauces were better off left in a lab, not in the kitchen. In 2023 people are very aware of what they eat and consume, which is why Fortunas Kitchen sauce products have been perfecting this formula since the early 90's, so I guess you can say we have gotten pretty good at what we do.