98-year-old Italian market brings specialty foods to Dayton

For the first time, an Italian market founded 98 years ago in San Francisco is expanding its line of specialty products nationwide, including the Dayton area.

All three Dayton-area Dorothy Lane Market stores are now offering select AG Ferrari Foods products, including several jarred pestos; Taralli crackers, a traditional cracker from the Puglia region of Italy made with olive oil; Tuscan Almond Biscotti; and Italian whole-bean coffee.

Of the pestos, “Our favorite is the Red Bell Pepper — it is really amazing,” said Calvin Mayne, Dorothy Lane Market’s vice president. “I can eat practically a whole jar just dipping with crackers.”

AG Ferrari Foods operates five Italian market-cafés in the Bay area. The company works directly with Italian producers and imports their products. For example, AG Ferrari’s web site says it imports its biscotti from Masini, a small family-run bakery in Florence, Italy that is still using its original recipe created in 1929.

Jarett Peppard, CEO of AG Ferrari Foods, forged the nationwide expansion, which includes placing its Italian specialty products in all Fairway Market and De Cicco Market locations in New York, Kowalski’s Markets in Minneapolis, Woodlands Markets in San Francisco, and Dorothy Lane Markets in the Dayton area, according to an AG Ferrari release.

The company also sells its products online from its web site, www.agferrari.com.

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About the Author

Mark Fisher

Mark Fisher, a 1981 graduate of Ohio State University and a 1976 graduate of Beavercreek High School, is a third-generation Dayton-area resident who has worked for the Dayton Daily News since 1983. He covered higher education and K-12 education accountability issues for nearly 20 years before taking over the food and dining beat in 2006.