Craft Cannery

Just about a year ago, Tom Riggio, partner with Paul Guglielmo of the booming Craft Cannery business venture in Bergen, spoke about the site's future expansion on Appletree Avenue and plans to hire more employees along with the physical growth.

Food and manufacturing officials brought the shovels out Wednesday for the ceremonial groundbreaking and celebration of the $1.5 million, 6,300 square-foot warehouse that will allow for a second kitchen and bottling line facility and, in turn, take on more clients, churn out more products and create more jobs.

Despite the continuous growth, there’s one element that has remained throughout the manufacturing process that may take a little more time but has most definitely been worth it for a winning product in the end, Guglielmo says.

“We make it exactly how you would make it at home. We put oil in, we let the oil get hot, and we put onion, garlic bell pepper in there and we sauté, then we add our tomatoes after that, our spices after that, and then we bottle it,” he said to The Batavian. “So, really, there's no difference between what I actually do at home versus what we're actually doing in the plant. And I think that's the secret when you get into big industrial packing. There are some secrets to how they're able to move so fast. That takes away some of that homemade aspect. So it really has to do with just making it exactly the way you make it home, just at a bigger scale.”

He spoke to a small gathering as part of the celebratory event, sharing how it all began with two special memories.

“The life-changing moment that really occurred first was when my wife told me it wasn't a stupid idea to start bottling sauce back in like 2013. The second life-changing moment was when a category merchant from Wegmans named Dan Mezzoprete showed up … and he's the guy who actually said we're gonna give this a shot, kid. So thank you,” he said to the small crowd gathered at the property. “So I think that today is really nice and validating. Grow New York was a validation for us. Today's another validation for us that we did what you set out to do when you start a business: find a problem that needs to be fixed. And I really feel as though we have found a problem that needs to be fixed.”

The company specializes in producing pasta sauces, barbecue sauces, salad dressings, oils, marinades and such on a large scale for local and regional food brands, retailers and restaurants that may not have the money, facilities, time and labor to do it themselves. As Guglielmo said, "Problem fixed."

“This world of contract manufacturing has a lot of big players who do a phenomenal job, but it doesn't have a lot of small players. There are some commissaries and commercial kitchens, and then there are big industrial co-packers, and people are doing really good jobs in those areas. But there's this thing that Cornell University described to me years ago, as almost like a death valley of contract manufacturing, and my partner Tom and I feel we really identified a niche, a problem,” he said. “And that is, our three main types of customers needed us: one was the startup entrepreneur with $1, and a dream, they want to bring their product to market, like Jerri Lynn from Blue Ridge BBQ. There's the restaurant food service, somebody who says, look, it doesn't make sense for us to come in and make dozens and dozens of gallons of barbecue sauce every day. What if you batch it for us? That will help our business efficiencies grow. And then of course, there's the regional players, like Wegmans, who we’re so proud to see here today as well, who say, Look, you know, we've got some skews that require a little more culinary expertise that we'd really like to see brought to market.”

Working at a small co-pack facility such as Craft Cannery allows staff to “really take your time on those kinds of recipes” before bringing them to market, he said, giving a thoughtful and modest nod to the company team that does “all the actual work.”

Riggio credited his partner’s dedication as the reason everyone was there to celebrate. They acquired the business nearly four years ago, and at the time, it was doing “minimal business,” Riggio said. 

“We do more in two weeks now than the business used to do in a year. The employees were three at that point. We’ve now got 15 full-time employees. When this expansion is complete, we’ll be adding another six to eight employees. We’ve actually had to turn business away over the last four years; some major players have come to us, and we just couldn’t support the business,” he said. “There are a bunch of products that are in those storage containers outside to make room for you to stand where you're standing. This is a great opportunity for us to continue to grow our business and support additional small clients, midsize clients and larger clients. We are looking forward to adding in the 6,300 square feet, looking forward to adding a second kitchen, second production line, second bottling line, and a second shift to support all of those, and we are really happy that you guys are out here.”

In the middle of COVID, about April 2020, an unflinching Guglielmo approached Wegmans Italian Foods Category Manager Steve Chichelli with his idea to open his own facility and forge a collaboration with the grocery giant. Chichelli had already known of Guglielmo as a radio personality with his stories about his grandfather’s homemade pasta sauce, and all of that had been "a great interaction.”

“So I'm thinking a guy, a local guy, ready to give jobs to a local community. And that's what Wegmans is about, too; we share a lot of the same values that he does, building up local businesses and creating jobs. So it was at that point we were like, hmm, how do we get him more? He's got his branded product, so I'm like, let's talk about private labels. Where could he fit in being a small co-packer, but let's partner him with our chef team,” Chichelli said. “So we started our endeavor with our first private label product with him, which is our Wegmans brand spicy tomato oil, one of my favorite items we have ever developed at Wegmans in the Italian categories. And that item has just grown to be great. When that launched, I mean, it was cross merchandised everywhere in the store, all departments got behind it: bakery department, prepared foods, we displayed it, and it's turned into a great item for us.”

He also said that they are developing a lemon butter and a marsala sauce to be launched this fall. 

“I give Paulie all the credit here. I'm just the guy who forms a strategy. He's the guy who works hand in hand with our chef team,” Chichelli said. “The tenacity, the passion that comes out in him—the chef team absolutely adores him.”

Major portions of the company’s growth have also been possible with infusions of funding — including $500,000 from winning second place at 2022 Grow-NY, a global food and agriculture innovation competition. 

“What began as a dream, nurtured by innovation and fueled by determination and unlikely a little bit of Paulie’s abundant energy, led to Craft Cannery’s Grow-NY winner's badge in 2022, and ultimately, a pivotal moment when their team now stands ready to embark on a new chapter of growth and success,” Program Manager Sarah Meyer said. “Beyond bricks and mortar, today we celebrate the profound impact Craft Cannery has had on its community, the Grow-NY Region and New York State as a whole. Since receiving their $500,000 prize, Craft Cannery has created and cultivated opportunities for growth and advancement as a contract manufacturer. They have established a space for innovation and created numerous job opportunities, fueling economic growth and fostering talent within their local community.”

Business neighbor Charlie Cook, founder of Liberty Pumps, further confirmed what a stellar job Gugliemo did on his Grow-NY pitch, which is viewable on the company website. Cook can see a lot of parallels between Liberty Pumps and Craft Cannery, he said.

“That we started from pretty basic beginnings and identified a niche that we could succeed at and excel at it,” Cook said. “And to have him right here in Bergen, being a Bergen business, especially a manufacturer in Genesee County, is fantastic. And it’s just been fun to watch him grow, and really, we wish him the best going forward.”

The company also received approval from Genesee County Economic Development Center for payment in lieu of taxes (PILOT), sales, and mortgage tax exemptions valued at $72,496 to support the expansion. The proposed incentives for the additional 4,000 sq. ft. are estimated to return $3.06 million in projected wages and municipal revenues. The project would generate a $62 economic impact for every $1 of requested incentives.

“With their flexible and hands-on approach, we’ve seen Craft Cannery become a go-to provider for contract manufacturing,” said Chris Suozzi, Vice President of Business and Workforce Development at GCEDC. “The GCEDC was thrilled to support the expansion of Craft Cannery in our Appletree Acres business park. This project is yet another example of the continued growth of the food and beverage sector in Genesee County.”

Press Release:

The Genesee County Economic Development Center (GCEDC) board of directors approved a final resolution for LNK Holdings Inc./Craft Cannery’s expansion of its contract manufacturing facility in the town of Bergen at its board meeting on Thursday, March 28.

The proposed $1.465 million project enables Craft Cannery to expand operations at Apple Tree Acres by adding 4,000 sq. ft. to its existing 5,000 sq. ft. facility. The USDA-certified contract manufacturer provides dozens of customers with the capacity to ramp production of sauces, dressings, marinades, and other foods, produce small-batch foods, and pilot unique recipes for commercialization.

“The agribusiness industry continues to propel our region’s economy, having a successful and growing food and beverage cluster from Bergen to Pembroke represents the type of investments that have made Genesee County a destination for the private sector,” said GCEDC President and CEO Steve Hyde.

The expansion will create 4 new full-time jobs and retain 6 full-time positions. Craft Cannery previously won a $500,000 grant at the 2022 Grow-NY Global Food and Agribusiness Competition that supports the expansion.

The company has requested payment in lieu of taxes (PILOT), sales, and mortgage tax exemptions valued at $72,496 to support the expansion. The proposed incentives for the additional 4,000 sq. ft. are estimated to return $3.06 million in projected wages and municipal revenues. The project would generate a $62 economic impact for every $1 of requested incentives.

The GCEDC board also approved a final resolution from LeatherLeaf Solar LLC for a 5 MW community solar farm in the town of Byron. The $9 million project is projected to generate $4,000/megawatts (AC) annually + a 2% annual escalator of revenues to Genesee County and Byron-Bergen Central School District, along with a host agreement with the Town of Byron. 

Press Release:

The Genesee County Economic Development Center (GCEDC) board of directors will consider an initial resolution for LNK Holdings Inc.’s acquisition and expansion of an agribusiness manufacturing facility in Bergen at its board meeting on Thursday.

The proposed $1.645 million project enables Craft Cannery to expand operations at Apple Tree Acres by adding 4,000 sq. ft. to its existing 5,000 sq. ft. facility. The USDA-certified contract manufacturer provides dozens of customers with the capacity to ramp production of sauces, dressings, marinades and other foods, produce small-batch foods, and pilot unique recipes for commercialization.

LNK Holdings Inc. plans to create four additional full-time equivalent (FTE) jobs and retain six FTE as part of the expansion. The project follows Craft Cannery’s victory in the 2022 Grow-NY Global Food and Agribusiness Competition, which awarded the company’s planned expansion a $500,000 prize.

The company has requested the GCEDC transfer the existing facility’s payment in lieu of taxes (PILOT) agreement, and PILOT, sales, and mortgage tax exemptions valued at $70,413 to support the acquisition and expansion. The proposed incentives for the additional 4,000 sq. ft. are estimated to return $3.06 million in projected wages and municipal revenues for a $64.1 economic impact for every $1 of requested incentives.

There are two things that Gino DeMino knows about tomato sauce: taste and price.

When locally produced Guglielmo’s sauce came onto Batavia Tops shelves, DeMino, the store manager, knew another good one had arrived.

“I’ve had it, it’s fantastic. It has great flavor, and it’s not watered down. It has a more homemade taste,” DeMino said. “His sauce is a premium. They’re starting to do better with inflation.”

Premium equals higher quality and also means a higher price. Since inflation has been driving up prices of most everything, that has helped sales of those more expensive items, he said.

DeMino has the qualifications to know products, he said: he’s been in the business for more than 20 years and “I’m Italian.”

“I tend to eat more pasta than most people,” he said.

Guglielmo’s, a generational sauce made at Craft Cannery in Bergen, is sold at a long list of stores in neighboring counties, including Tops Friendly Markets. The sauce arrived at Batavia Tops about six months ago, but DeMinio had discovered it before then, at a Rochester store.

Several small businesses bring their recipes to Craft, which manufactures their products as a safe, reliable end result. Red Osier of Stafford is another local client that has marinades and sauces in Tops and Wegmans, and more distant places, such as Hotdog Charlie’s from the Albany area, is a hot seller, Tom Riggio said.

The ever-expanding vendor list is just one sign of Craft Cannery’s robust health, said Riggio, Guglielmo’s business partner. They have more than 75 clients.

“We’re growing,” Riggio said. “As far as the size of the expansion, we’re not exactly sure of the exact size at this point in time, but anywhere between 3 and 5,000 square feet. It’ll allow us to build a separate warehouse behind our building for storage purposes and allow us to put in a second kitchen, essentially a second bottling line facility.

“Our sweet spot is the local restauranteur that says they think they've got the best pasta sauce. And it was actually very, very helpful during COVID when these restaurants weren't open,” he said. “They would come to us with their pasta sauce recipe, we would make it food safe and bottle it for them. And then they get it on shelves.”

Craft Cannery is one of six USDA-certified manufacturing canneries in New York State that allows the company to produce meat-based products. It’s a good opportunity to continue to grow the business, he said. Based at 7100 Appletree Ave. in Bergen, the site on the east end of Genesee County continues to update its products and hire new personnel, especially after the expansion is completed by the first half of 2024.

One of its more recent products has been the EZ cap using new technology “which allows people that struggle to open jars to essentially push a button and be able to open a jar with a lot less force,” he said.

“Our business continues to grow, we’re experiencing growth,” Riggio said. “We’re looking to add more people. We’re up to eight, we’re adding one new this Monday. Two more next week. And seven to eight to run the second line.”

With all of the good, there have been a few bumps along the way since purchasing the company in May 2020. Craft lost a client they had been producing six varieties of sauces for, which meant taking a financial hit. They had purchased raw materials, made product and shipped it out before learning that Real Eats out of Geneva had gone out of business. It was a loss of “tens of thousands of dollars,” Riggio said.

“It stings. It’s the cost of doing business for us. Thankfully, you know, we plan for these situations,” he said. “Our business will be fine; it hasn’t impacted our business. Our employees will be able to use some of the raw materials.”

Contrary to how some news articles made it seem, Craft Cannery is alive and well, he said. If anything, he will take a page from that other company’s last chapter and learn to move carefully with Craft Cannery. The site is big enough for options.

“We’ve got land that we could expand even further. But what we don’t want to do is, we don’t want to over-expand. We’re going to take the steps that we need to do to keep up and grow the business,” he said. “I don’t want to overstep it and put the business at risk, which is exactly what happened with Real Eats. I’ve got a background in building businesses and brands. And obviously, Paul is the face of the company. So the two of us make a good one-two punch.”

Top Photo: Paul Guglielmo shows some of his sauce that's locally made at Craft Cannery in Bergen and now available at Batavia Tops on Lewiston Road. Photos by Howard Owens.

Paul Guglielmo was sitting at his desk chatting with wife Ryann while he multi-tasked with emails, and spotted one message in particular.

He apologized for the expletive.

“I think I literally went ‘holy s—, I think we got selected for Grow New York,” Guglielmo said during an interview with The Batavian. “The realistic future of the next five years or so … this would accelerate it from a five-year plan to become a two-year plan.”

Earlier this summer, at the end of June, Guglielmo, CEO of Craft Cannery in Bergen, submitted an application for the 2022 Grow-NY competition. He was one of 390 entries. Touted as one of the biggest food and agriculture business competitions in the world targeting companies in the Finger Lakes, Central New York and the Southern Tier, Grow-NY provides opportunities for business owners to go on to a final competition with prizes of $250,000 up to $1 million for business investments.

Guglielmo attended last year’s event and ended up watching every single one of the 20 finalists. They each gave a 10-minute pitch, followed by five minutes of questions from the judges. Think: Shark Tank minus Mark Cuban.

He was impressed, to say the least, with those contenders, and thought ‘how smart’ they all were. It didn’t seriously cross his mind to enter until after a trusted friend and mentor suggested that he go for it. Tom Riggio, who is also his business partner for Craft Cannery, helped Guglielmo with the application.

“We sat down together and went through the application, and kind of punched it up,” Guglielmo said. “There was an option to add a video.”

As it turns out, a prospective company asked for some help to make a batch of new sauces at Craft Cannery. The company had someone who could shoot videos, so they bartered to make some sauce and record a video for the competition.

Guglielmo, who is also founder and CEO of Guglielmo Sauce, said he felt pretty confident going into it at that point. He had the two-minute promo and his own experience and knowledge of what he has — a two-year-old company that began with three employees and now has 10 — and the potential for so much more to double his staff, he said.

He will attend an orientation and get a mentor and a coach to prepare until the final competition on Nov. 16 in Syracuse. His pitch, not quite yet fully fleshed out, is three-pronged:

1. Funding us means funding the creation of other businesses.

“What I love about us is you’re funding all of these other businesses too, at least a few a month,” the 39-year-old said.

2. In order to service our bigger customers, we need the equipment.

3. Sustainability: Craft Cannery takes tomatoes deemed inappropriate for the retail market (they don’t look perfect) and uses them to make “perfect” sauce. By working with Intergrow Greenhouses, there is a potential to process 500,000 pounds of tomatoes that otherwise get tossed due to aesthetics.

“We rescue a couple tons a week of tomatoes headed to the dump … they’re undersized, oversized, and didn’t look good,” he said. “If we were operating in pure perfection, we could do about 200,000 pounds a year. I want to do all 500,000 pounds.”

Right now the company is doing much of the prep work by hand — scrubbing tomatoes, for example — and larger processing equipment would streamline that for more efficiency and ability to take on more product, he said.

Guglielmo’s vision is to create an entire line of New York State grown tomato products, with a full slate of crushed, chopped, diced and sauced versions of the red fruits. All of these plans need an infusion of money to expand the physical footprint of the business and fill a production room with equipment, such as large high-pressure hot water containers that spin tomatoes on metal wheels to peel off their skins and remove the seeds for puree and other similar seedless items.

He could easily spend the top $1 million award, Guglielmo said, but would be grateful for any amount, and is going into the final competition an optimist.

“I’m literally speaking out loud, talking to myself in my car. I want to bring some energy to the room, being energetic and enthusiastic without being corny,” he said. “Worst-case scenario, we come out of it with a really fine-tuned plan.”

Empire State Development is funding the competition through its Upstate Revitalization Initiative connected with the three regions—Finger Lakes Forward, CNY Rising and Southern Tier Soaring. Cornell University’s Center for Regional Economic Advancement is administering the competition.

Craft Cannery specializes in taking recipes from individuals, restaurants or food production brands, and adjusting it for large production. Customers range from marinara sauces to oils to hot sauces and BBQ sauces to salsas for brands across the region. It’s the exclusive production facility for Guglielmo Sauce, Sticky Lips BBQ, Old Pueblo Grill, Coach Tony’s, Uncle Ralph’s, Red Osier and dozens of other high-profile food brands.

File Photo of Paul Guglielmo, CEO of Craft Cannery in Bergen, by Howard Owens.

There’s a joke at Bergen’s Craft Cannery about the necessity to document even the most minute details.

Except that it’s not so much a joke as it is a principle for owner Paul Guglielmo. And it was just that type of meticulous business practice that earned the Bergen businessman a coveted Safe Quality Food certification.

“Let's say it's required to have a bachelor's degree to do food safety. This would be like getting a doctorate, Ok? It's really rigorous in the sense that the joke is, you know, if you sneeze, there's a procedure and a form to fill out. But the truth is, it's just a really, really dedicated paper trail on everything you do and everything that comes in and out of your building,” Guglielmo said during an interview with The Batavian. “I’m an entrepreneur flying by the seat of my pants, and I don't necessarily have the time or the wherewithal or even the intelligence to put all these systems in place. And this puts systems in place for you and essentially forces you into a system that is used by some of the most successful plants in the world.”

Graduating from that Safe Quality Food program — similar to obtaining a doctorate degree — has meant more and higher-level opportunities, including acquiring the business of “bigger, regional brands,” he said. 

About the cannery ...
It may help to put this into perspective by knowing more about Craft Cannery, a Genesee County hidden secret tucked behind Liberty Pumps at 7100 Appletree Lane in Bergen. Craft Cannery specializes in taking recipes from individuals, restaurants or food production brands, and adjusting them for large production. The cannery then takes those more voluminous recipes and produces, bottles, labels, and ships the final goods for companies across the region.

Guglielmo branded his family name for a tomato sauce seven years ago and had been producing it at a nearby site in Bergen. That has morphed into specializing in sauces, dressings, oils, marinades, teas, soups, meat sauces, meal-in-jars and other items under other local labels, including Uncle Tony’s, Sticky Lips BBQ, Uncle Ralph’s, Old Pueblo Grill, Red Osier and dozens of other “high profile” brands, he said. 

The cannery is one of six USDA-certified manufacturing canneries in New York State, which allows the company to produce meat-based products. Led by Guglielmo, with the support and input from his wife Ryann, and a team of seven employees, the cannery most recently earned Safe Quality Food certification through Safe Quality Foods Institute. That entailed a two-day audit after what Guglielmo describes as a “year in-the-making” preparation with the help of a quality assurance consultant and SQF practitioner. 

The Audit …
So what exactly is a Safe Quality Food certificate? It’s a methodical system of checking all aspects of the cannery’s business practices to ensure that all ingredients, operations, documentation and canning/bottling processes are noted and verified as meeting the guidelines of being safe, quality food. The auditor takes a randomly selected batch of product and tests it based on things like the ingredients, where they’re from, when they were shipped to the site, how they were prepared, the temperature at which they were cooked, and the backup paperwork on all of it. 

“In late July they did the audit; it was two days going through everything with a fine-tooth comb. Now that we have (SQF status) it’s a big deal,” Guglielmo said.  “It unlocked the door for us … it took us to the next level.” 

From the airwaves to bottling …
Guglielmo started out in media as a radio host for 15 years. A budding entrepreneur, he took his childhood experience of canning tomatoes with his grandfather and decided to bottle and sell his elder’s tomato sauce under the label Guglielmo’s. He was doing that in a manufacturing plant in Bergen before discovering that “I can do bottling for a living,” he said. That was a “pinch yourself moment."

“I was loving running this little sauce business. I’m more of a bull in a china shop, full-speed ahead. (The SQF process) forces you to slow down,” he said. “If you want to work with big brands, then you need to have this certification. And it allowed us to start to work with some big brands. And so it has really been a breakthrough moment for us.”

Through a connection with "Coach" Tony Perry, the founder of Permac, and who was planning to soon retire, Guglielmo drove out at 4:30 in the morning to meet with the early riser about buying his Bergen-based operation. A deal was made, and Guglielmo’s grew into Craft Cannery. He started Guglielmo's sauce with 20 cases of marinara sauce in the summer of 2014, and today the product is available in over 500 stores, including Wegmans, Tops, and Whole Foods, and hundreds of locally owned small businesses across the Northeast.  The operation moved into 5,000 square feet behind Liberty Pumps. That move included going more automated, which, contrary to popular belief, required more employees and not less, he said. He and partners Tom Riggio and Jay Perry, the son of Coach Tony, are hoping to expand the current site in the near future.

Guglielmo, who lives in Rochester with his wife Ryann and their 3-year-old son Leo, believes in giving back to the community. He is a Rochester Business Journal Forty Under 40 award recipient, serves on the Board of Directors for Rochester Rotary and Big Brothers Big Sisters, has spoken to culinary arts students as a member of Genesee Valley BOCES Culinary Board, and is heavily involved and active in the community.

His wife is in marketing, and she helped with Guglielmo’s logo and public relations efforts. She has enjoyed watching her husband navigate the entrepreneurial world. He admittedly has had some tough lessons, and learned that it’s ok to oversee employees and direct them on what to do, he said. In fact, he learned that his employees welcomed the idea and were looking for guidance versus ample latitude to figure things out on their own. He credits his and the team’s resilience to keep going even on the hard days, because the good ones will come around again. 

It has been that kind of education that has strengthened his business skills, Ryann said. 

“It’s been such a journey to see Paul become a leader … as the sauce came around, it was just him and I working every festival. Now he’s leading a team of nine people,” she said. “He takes such pride and taking care of his team, he takes that so seriously. He is really becoming a great leader and he cares about his team.”

His next big goal is to triple the size of his current plant and break ground by 2023.

“I like Bergen. Genesee County has been really, really great,” the 38-year-old said.

Recognized by the Global Food Safety Initiative (GFSI), the SQF family of food safety and quality codes are designed to meet industry, customer, and regulatory requirements for all sectors of the food supply chain – from the farm all the way to the retail stores. Audits will be conducted once a year to maintain the SQF status, with the first two being scheduled in advance, followed by surprise, unannounced visits beginning in year three. The time, effort and tracking have been worthwhile for his bottom line, Guglielmo said. 

“I want nothing more than to produce safe, quality products for my customers,” Guglielmo said. “The thing I am most proud of is how hard every single team member has worked towards this SQF certification. The approval of our SQF program is a testament to this Craft Cannery team. We’ll always be committed to food safety, and we’re ready to keep working and making products our clients – and their customers – love.”

Top photo: Craft Cannery owner Paul Guglielmo shows some labels for his own product, Guglielmo's tomato sauce, at the company site in Bergen. Labels are just a portion of his business that also includes recipe creation, cooking, bottling and shipping of several local and regional brands. Cannery partner James Perry is shown pouring product into bottles and employee Steven Coakley watches a line of labeled product move along an assembly line. Photos by Howard Owens.