Rouses_March-April-2018_FINAL-rev

FAMILY LETTER

On the Cover Il Formaggio — Italian Cheese on page 18 Cover Photo by Romney Caruso • • • SHOP Look for the Delizioso logo on our Authentic Italian items, including Italian- made pastas, olive oils, cheeses and preserves. LEARN Read more about our Gulf Coast Italian heritage online at www.rouses.com. EAT We’re celebrating our Italian heritage throughout the month of March, with special prices on authentic Italian products, in-store cooking demonstrations and sampling of Italian cuisine made with Italian products carried in our stores. COOK Find authentic Italian recipes online at www.rouses.com. Del io PRODUCT OF ITALY

OUR ITALIAN HERITAGE My Sardinian-born great-grandfather brought his food traditions to Louisiana when he immigrated in 1900. Like many other families on the Gulf Coast, I grew up eating Italian and Creole Italian dishes, like cacio e pepe and spaghetti with red gravy. Italy has a cultural heritage that is felt everywhere in the country, but nowhere more than here on the Gulf Coast. One-quarter of us can trace our lineage directly back to the old country. The Port of New Orleans was a major gateway for Italian immigrants arriving during the New Immigration — that period between the 1880s and the 1920s that saw Italians come to America in record numbers. Railroads helped these newcomers establish Italian communities from Ponchatoula, Independence, Amite and Hammond, Louisiana, to Biloxi, Mississippi, and Bayou La Batre and Daphne, Alabama. We already stocked hundreds of Italian imports in our Rouses markets, but in the past year we’ve made authentic Italian a priority. We traveled to Sicily, Milan, Verona, Bologna and other Italian regions.While there, we met with individual makers and attended major food shows and Vinitaly, the enormous annual wine and spirits exhibition.We also partnered with the Italian Trade Agency to add hundreds more Italian imports to our shelves. Recently, we unveiled our very own line of Italian-made products.The Rouses private label is our way of bringing you better prices on the foods you’ve eaten your whole life, as well as delicious new Italian foods you may not have thought of serving every day. We make some great Italian-inspired cuisine here in the United States. But when you go to the source for authentic Italian, where people have been making the products for hundreds — even thousands — of years, there are strict requirements for ingredients and manufacturing processes that govern how food is made, so you know the quality is there. Italians, after all, are as passionate about their food culture as we are. Donny Rouse 3 rd Generation

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