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When hardworking Americans hear the story of Leprino Foods, they should see a classic tale of immigrant grit turned into enduring American success. The company that started as a little Italian grocery in Denver has grown into the world’s largest mozzarella maker after the recent death of longtime chairman James Leprino, and his daughters Terry Leprino and Gina Vecchiarelli now control the family empire. This is the kind of legacy built by elbow grease, ingenuity, and private stewardship—not bureaucrats or woke boardrooms.
Leprino’s scale is staggering: roughly $3.6 billion in estimated annual revenue and more than a billion pounds of cheese produced each year, supplying household-name pizza chains across America. That kind of output didn’t come from government grants or virtue signaling— it came from invention, patents, and relentless focus on serving customers efficiently and affordably. It’s proof positive that the free market still rewards competence and risk-taking when families are left free to run their businesses.
Leadership continuity matters, and the company isn’t being handed to strangers in suits; Dan Vecchiarelli, who has been involved with the firm for years, stepped up as CEO and chairman to keep the business on steady footing. Family-run companies like this often outperform faceless conglomerates because they think long term and answer to pride more than to quarterly activists. Conservatives should applaud that preference for stability, accountability, and real-world experience over corporate fads and social-engineering experiments.
The inheritance that made Terry and Gina billionaires is not a sign of unfairness but of generational wealth created through entrepreneurship and improvement of an industry that feeds millions. Instead of demonizing success, our nation ought to celebrate families who transformed a small shop into an American industrial asset that employs thousands and keeps pizza on our tables. If Washington’s elites want to encourage more of this, they should cut red tape and stop punishing success with punitive taxes and endless regulation.
Change and hard choices come with growth—Leprino recently announced plant shifts and capacity investments as it modernizes operations and invests in new facilities, moves that will keep American manufacturing competitive even as some older plants are retired. That transition will be painful for affected workers and communities, but it’s a reminder that market-driven decisions, not political posturing, determine who prospers in the long run. Patriots who love their towns and neighbors should demand policies that help workers retrain and attract new investment, not policies that punish successful companies for evolving.
