Outside an otherwise nondescript office building for ConAgra Brands stands a life-size bronze statue of Ettore Boiardi, who Anglicized his name as Chef Hector Boyardee when he began selling his packaged spaghetti sauce and dinners.
He sold Chef Boyardee Foods to American Home Products in 1946, and AHP’s successor International Home Foods was bought in 2000 by food giant ConAgra, which started in Nebraska and whose headquarters were in Omaha at the time.
This statue, by Omaha sculptor John Lajba, was erected in 2011 and was originally sited elsewhere in downtown Omaha. In 2017 it was moved to its current location outside the entrance to ConAgra’s Charles M. “Mike” Harper Product Development Center.
The statue has a seemingly identical twin, unveiled in 2013 outside the ConAgra plant in Milton, Pennsylvania, which has been producing Chef Boyardee products since 1938.
