Secret Sauce: Skae to Head Carbone Fine Food

When rapper Drake wanted to name-drop a favorite restaurant in his 2017 song “Do Not Disturb,” he turned to New York Italian restaurant Carbone. While you might have previously had to be Drake to get into the famed restaurant, getting a taste of that experience is about to be a lot easier. Today CPG veteran Eric Skae announced his new role as CEO of Carbone Fine Food (CFF), launching a line of pasta sauce under the brand to start.

The sauce debuted yesterday in Tri-State Stop & Shop stores, and will also be sold direct-to-consumer starting in mid-March. Retailing at $7.99 to $8.99, the sauces will initially have three varieties (Marinara, Arabiatta and Tomato Basil) with a fourth flavor coming soon.

Skae has had a long history in the food industry, mostly recently serving as COO of snack brand Popcornopolis, which sold to NexPhase Capital in 2019. But it’s his prior role as CEO of Rao’s Specialty Foods — the beloved pasta sauce brand — that he said has best prepared him for his current role. Skae said though his non-compete with Rao’s had ended, he had no plans to reenter the category. But the opportunity to work with Michelin-starred chefs and the “power of the brand from a pop culture standpoint” was just too great for the self proclaimed growth “junkie.”

“What I didn’t want was another one year sprint. I wanted something that was going to last longer that I could build,” Skae said. “As I looked at the category, and you talk about other restaurant brands, I don’t believe that there’s [another competitor to Rao’s] in the superpremium category. I just don’t think anyone has stepped up and done it.”

The company is backed by the three owners of Major Food Group (the parent company of Carbone): Mario Carbone, Rich Torrisi and Jeff Zalaznick, with minority investment from a family office. Skae could not disclose at this time how much capital the company has raised or who the other investors are, but said CFF was “well funded.”

Carbone itself has a cult following, with customers waiting months (when lucky) to get a table at the restaurant, where a meal typically costs $150 to $250 per person. The original New York City location has expanded to Las Vegas, and most recently, Miami.

That success has continued even over the last year. In March 2020, when the Covid-19 pandemic began and Carbone first began offering takeout, New York City police had to be called to manage the crowd of delivery drivers at the restaurant. Meanwhile, the restaurant’s summer Hamptons delivery service required customers to spend a minimum of $500 per delivery, for at least four weeks.

While some restaurants have been hit hard by restrictions on dining, Skae said Carbone is doing fine and the sauce launch is not in response to any lost earnings but rather an opportunity to target an increased interest by consumers in home cooking. Shoppers, he added, are not going out to dinner as much and, as such, are willing to invest in more premium products. The brand’s packaging also is designed to standout from the category, with a more modern look that was created to appeal to a younger consumer.

Still, despite the widespread buzz around the restaurant, Skae plans to be focused with the launch. The company will focus on distribution in the Tri-State area, before moving up and down the East Coast, and then into other geographic regions. The team has plans to launch other SKU’s throughout the store, but for the near future, Skae and his team are focusing on sauce.

“The goal is to make restaurant quality sauce,” Skae said. “No one should have to make sauce at home.”