That's the refrain that Angela Alessio, founder of Alessio's Mangia Mangia, Inc. has heard from friends and relatives for the past 30 years... She never dreamed her passion for sauce could turn into a full-time business!

It all started in her grandmother's kitchen over 30 years ago. Her grandmother agreed to teach her to make the sauce the family enjoyed every Sunday. With grandma's loving instruction and learning the secret to the blending of fresh herbs and spices from her beloved father, Angelo, Angela began making sauce for the family. Angela's sauce soon became a family favorite!

Years later, after just about everyone had told her to sell her sauce she decided to take some of her Birthday money from her mother-in-law Rosalind Sieglitz, money to buy jars and enough supplies for a large pot of sauce. She jarred the sauce and began giving it to family and friends. Word got around and soon people from the neighborhood and friends of friends wanted to buy Angela's sauce. She began making sauce for all her customers each and every week.

Next, Angela began selling her sauce at Root's, a farmer's market in Lancaster County. She says the first time she got a table at Roots it wasn't in the most ideal location but she made the best of it. She played old tunes from Frank Sinatra and offered samples of her sauce from her simmering pot. The music and the aroma of the sauce drew the crowd over to her table and amazingly enough, she almost sold out that first day!

Over the next few months, Angela returned to Roots again and again to sell her now infamous sauce! She was approached by several grocers interested in selling her sauce in their stores. So Angela named her sauce, developed a label for it and formed Alessio's Mangia Mangia Inc.

She chose Mangia, Mangia to name her sauce because it was a phrase her grandmother used at just about every meal when she was growing up! Mangia, Mangia is an Italian phrase, meaning Eat! Eat! Angela has used the phrase with her own children and even her grandchildren in recent years, mainly out of habit. She had no idea how important the phrase had become until one day she was in a restaurant with her grandchildren, and her grandchild, Jade, stopped everyone when they began to eat by saying "Stop, we have to wait for grandma to say Mangia, Mangia first." Her granddaughter was just 3 at the time!

The future of Alessio's Mangia Mangia Inc. looks bright, as Angela gently steers her operation to success one day at a time. Angela continues to enjoy selling her sauce at Root's each and every week. In addition, her sauce is now being sold in many local grocery stores and Root's Farmers Market in Lancaster County and is jarred at a local facility. She never expected her business to become a full-time enterprise, but is very pleased it has.