Sheboygan Pasty Co., founded by brothers Tony and John Ranieri, started at Ranieri’s Four of a Kind, a Sheboygan restaurant, in January 2021 after the COVID-19 pandemic had slowed business, idling a second kitchen.
“We wanted to find a product that you could make ahead of time,” John says.
Pasties are a traditional comfort food in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula where Cornish miners settled, bringing the meat and vegetable filled pastry with them.
Sheboygan Pasty Co. launched with 1,000 pasties, expecting that supply to last a week. Instead it sold out in a few days and soon had inquiries from local meat markets about carrying the product.
In fall 2021, Tony and John started selling the pasties wholesale. Then they hit the road with pasties and talked to owners at grocery stores, meat markets and cheese stores about carrying their product.
The growth required Sheboygan Pasty Co. to move into a separate facility and eventually add a cold storage space.
It wasn’t always easy. John says they started with very little capital and had to take out loans secured by another property they owned and ask family members to pitch in with little or no compensation.
By fall of 2023 they had 90 customers and found themselves delivering frozen pasties across the state and beyond.
Partnerships with SpartanNash and Palermo’s followed in spring 2024. It grew their potential customer base to hundreds of stores in 10 states and took the burden of distribution off the business.
The staff of eight produces 2,000 to 5,000 pasties a week in its current space, but new products and the purchase of new equipment has the business looking for a new site.
Palermo’s recently asked Sheboygan Pasty to develop a frozen calzone.
