Amanda Mounts and her son Maverick Mounts, 4, eat their Ricos nachos at the San Antonio Missions home opener on April 7. (Andrew J. Whitaker/San Antonio Express-News)
The family behind Ricos Products, the San Antonio institution that pioneered stadium-grade nacho cheese, is getting out of the business after 130 years.
The Liberto family announced Friday that Alimentos Polar International, the subsidiary of Venezuelan food and beverage company Empresas Polar, has acquired Ricos. Terms of the deal were not disclosed.
“It is with grateful and bittersweet hearts that today, we announce that Ricos Products Company has transitioned to a new ownership group,” the family said in a statement. “Our family’s over 130-year run of operating our beloved family business has come to an end. While this decision was taken with extensive thoughtfulness and consideration, we are thrilled and excited for the continued growth of Ricos Products Company under Empresas Polar and their leadership, and we are confident the brand and product you have come to love will continue to bring great joy around the world.”
Ricos Products was launched in 1976, but its roots extend decades earlier.
The family business got its start in the concessions business by selling peanuts to local circuses. Frank Liberto later started selling nachos to stadiums worldwide, becoming known as the “Father of the Ballpark Nacho.” (Andrew J. Whitaker/San Antonio Express-News)
In the late 1800s, Rosario “Frank” Liberto, the great-grandfather of Ricos’ former owner and CEO, Tony Liberto, immigrated from Cefalù, Sicily, to New Orleans as a teenager. He started a grocery business, importing Italian goods to Louisiana, before moving to San Antonio. He later began roasting coffee for his grocery store, and that led him into the concessions business. Using the same roasting equipment, he cornered the market on circus peanuts.
Rosario Liberto’s business was later handed down to his son Enrico, whose son Frank went on to invent the concession nacho, which became the basis for the Ricos Products empire.
Frank Liberto and his wife, Patricia, grew the company before their son Tony took over in 2006.
“Tony took Ricos to previously unseen heights, and along with his siblings Denise and Rick, would continue the family legacy, growing Ricos into the worldwide concession leader that it has become today,” the family continued. “We are very proud that a small Sicilian grocery in Shreveport has become an international concession business and has employed five generations of the Liberto family within its ranks.”
Tony Liberto, former CEO of Ricos Products, is shown at the headquarters in San Antonio earlier this year. The food company started in San Antonio ushered in an era of concession food snacks synonymous with packed stadiums and shows all over the world. (Andrew J. Whitaker/San Antonio Express-News)
Ricos sells the original concession-stand-style nacho cheese sauce and a variety of other salty snacks and food service items at major national grocery and retail chains, movie theaters, more than 40 college and university stadiums and roughly 20 professional athletic venues.
Tony Liberto will no longer serve as CEO, but the company will remain headquartered in San Antonio. The rest of the operations and management team will stay in place after the leadership transition.
“While a significant chapter in our family’s lives has come to an end, Ricos will always hold a special and important piece of our hearts,” the statement concluded. “Our family will still be involved with the business, both as consultants and employees. For the rest of our lives, Ricos will always be the first thing we look for at every grocery store, movie theater and sports stadium, and we will excitingly enjoy our snack alongside everyone else.”
Empresas Polar is a family-owned Venezuelan food and beverage company founded in 1941. This acquisition will continue Empresas Polar’s more than 15 years of business in the U.S. The company has a production facility in Auburndale, Fla., where it makes Polar Premium Beer, Polar Pilsen and Maltín Polar. It also opened its International Grains and Cereals plant in Greenville, where it produces precooked white and yellow corn flour, mayonnaise, margarines and various frozen foods and milk modifiers.
“Ricos is a true American original, and we have tremendous respect for what the Liberto family has built over five generations,” said Lorenzo Mendoza, president and CEO of Empresas Polar. “As a family-owned company ourselves, we understand the importance of preserving that legacy. Our commitment is to build on everything that makes Ricos special – its people, its San Antonio roots, and the quality and traditions its customers have come to trust – while investing in the company’s continued growth and bringing its products to even more consumers around the world. We are proud to welcome Ricos to the Empresas Polar family.”
