Baking & Snack - December 2024 - 15

SPECIAL REPORT
Operations Executives of the Year
Lou Rotella III and John Rotella expand upon the foundation their
forefathers have laid with new business ventures and vision.
by Charlotte Atchley
E
Every generation of the Rotella family has taken the
family's commercial bakery, Rotella's Italian Bakery,
to the next level. The founder, Alessandro Rotella,
an Italian immigrant who began his family bakery
in Omaha, Neb., while on strike with Union Pacific
Railroad, would not believe what his son, grandson and
great-grandchildren have built upon the foundation he
laid in 1921. Alessandro's son, Lou Rotella Sr., strove to
have one of the best commercial bakeries in the United
States, and his grandson, Lou Rotella Jr., chief executive
officer, took the company's distribution nationwide with
frozen product.
The fourth generation - Lou Rotella III, chief operating
officer, and John Rotella, general manager - are
poised to continue the tradition of going further than
the generations before.
Each of Lou Rotella Jr.'s sons plays to his own strength
and passion in contributions to the family business. Lou
Rotella III has spent much of his career in the family business,
formalizing policies and procedures to better support
the company's immense growth over the past few
decades. John Rotella, a natural-born builder, has streamlined
the company's production to reach new efficiencies
and is the one the family turns to in order to design and
implement every capital investment project. These contributions
to their father's dream as well as their own dreams
for the future of Rotella's Italian Bakery have earned both
of them the honor of being named Baking & Snack's
Operations Executives of the Year.
The family culture
Being a Rotella does not automatically mean you must
make your career about Rotella's Italian Bakery. Lou
Rotella Jr. recalled no pressure to join the family business
unless it's what he wanted. He has also given each
of his three sons the choice: Lou Rotella III and John
Rotella both took him up on his offer while Joe Rotella
has pursued a career in medicine.
" I never forced them to come into the bakery, " Lou Jr.
said. " I wanted them to make their own choices about
what they wanted to be. ... I'm so fortunate that I have
two of my boys in the bakery, and the most important
thing is that they're capable of running the company.
That's not always the case with a family company, but my
kids work really hard. They've proved to me and everyone
else at the bakery that they're capable of running it. "
While the kids may have been able to choose their ultimate
career paths, they all worked at the bakery growing
up. As teenagers, their part-time jobs involved every aspect
of the bakery: production lines, packaging, sanitation.
" If you weren't playing an organized sport, then you
had to be working, " Lou Rotella III said. " Typically,
on a Saturday, we would put in a 10- to 12-hour shift
on sanitation. "
Between family dinners and working the front line of
the family business, Lou Rotella III and John Rotella were
steeped in their family culture and the business's core values
informed by that culture: quality, customer service,
product innovation, generosity and teamwork. They've
done every job in the bakery, which has given them an
incredible understanding of the business and empathy for
their employees. They have firsthand experience of how
their grandfather and father ran the company and the
production room floor, and what their expectations were
that led to the bakery's growth and success. Thinking back
to those days putting in a shift on the sanitation crew,
John Rotella remembered his grandfather's priority on
cleanliness and how that reverberates today.
" Our grandfather was extremely meticulous when it
came to maintaining a clean bakery, which we still are
today, " he said. " As a matter of fact, we just scored 100%
on an SQF audit, which is pretty rare, especially given
the size of the campus that we currently have. "
That meticulous nature, however, went beyond sanitation
to every facet of the company.
" He always said, 'Check, double check and recheck,' "
www.bakingbusiness.com / December 2024 Baking & Snack 15
John Rotella (left),
general manager,
and Lou Rotella III,
chief operating officer,
Rotella's Italian
Bakery, expand on
the vision of their
bakery's founder,
their great-grandfather,
Alessandro
Rotella, who laid
these stones for the
original bakery.
Photography by David Radler
http://www.bakingbusiness.com
Baking & Snack - December 2024

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