Unlike many corporate mascots such as Betty Crocker, Chef Boyardee was a real person: an Italian immigrant named Hector Boiardi, who came to America in 1914 and immediately found work as a restaurant chef. By 1924, Boiardi opened an Italian restaurant of his own, where his signature spaghetti dish was so popular that customers said they wished they could make it themselves at home. So Boiardi started selling take-out meal kits containing cheese, dried pasta, and a jar of marinara sauce.
The kits grew so popular that in 1928, Boiardi and his family started the Chef Boiardi Food Co. The products sold fairly well, except Boiardi's American salesmen had difficulty pronouncing his last name, which is why he switched to the phonetic "Chef Boy-Ar-Dee." Chef Boyardee's inexpensive and tasty products sold well even during the Depression, and in World War II, Chef Boyardee cans were included in Allied soldiers' rations.
