JGR purchases Fort Worth-based O.B. Macaroni
According to JGR Chief Marketing Officer and Vice President Gene Ratliff, O.B. Macaroni, which operates from a 35,300-square-foot industrial building at 108 South Freeway in Fort Worth, will be adding administrative and support staff as well as new products.
“Our directive is to bring the company back to what it was over its 100-year history,” Ratliff said. “We want to bring it back to the community and the state.”
O.B. Macaroni makes two lines of pasta – Our Best cut pastas and Q&Q Vermicelli – which produce a combined 10 million pounds of pasta each year according to the company’s Web site.
JGR Enterprises is a privately held Texas company that was based in Austin until two months ago when the firm moved to Fort Worth in preparation of the O.B. Macaroni purchase, Ratliff said. The principals of JGR Enterprises also owns and operates REX Fine Foods, a Cajun and Creole spice and seasoning company based in New Orleans, La. Ratliff said REX production will continue in Louisiana for now, though many of the REX products will be moved to the O.B. plant with the possibility for REX operations to follow, though Ratliff said that is still unknown.
“We won’t bring that manufacturing here now, but we could be manufacturing here in the future,” he said of the REX line.
JGR is a registered minority-owned entity with Ratliff’s wife, Jenni Ratliff, serving as president and CEO. Gene Ratliff said O.B. Macaroni will retain its company name.
Italian immigrant and grocer Louis Bicocchi founded Fort Worth Macaroni in 1899 on South Jennings Avenue in Fort Worth’s south side. The company’s name was changed to O.B. Macaroni, which is short for Our Best Macaroni, in 1959. Until the sale, the company was still owned and managed by the fourth generation of the Laneri family, descendants of early investor and president Giovanni Battista Laneri (who worked as the company’s door opener and financier until his death in 1935)
O.B. Macaroni not only stands as one of the few pasta manufacturing facilities in the United States, but also a pillar of the Fort Worth business community. In fact, Jan. 15, 1999, was proclaimed O.B. Macaroni Day in honor of the company. According to the Tarrant Appraisal District, O.B. Macaroni recorded a business personal property value of $778,681 for 2009, up from $403,992 in 2008.
O.B. Macaroni has operated from its 108 South Freeway plant since 1904.
