Sansone Food Products in New Hyde Park can trace its roots back to Rome four generations ago.
But, according to Leonardo Mastranoni, the family-run food business can’t rely on its reputation and long history alone.
“In the restaurant business, you have to be one step ahead. It’s a never-ending job,” Mastrantoni said.
Mastrantoi said in addition to running the store his family has operated at 2133 Jericho Turnpike since the mid-1980s he now he spends his time traveling to Italy to scout new products and in Manhattan, sampling the fare in the restaurants there.
Leonardo is joined in the business by his younger brother, Rocco, who works on accounts payable, and their father Rocco, who keeps a close tab on the overall operations.
Sansone’s business is primarily wholesale, with 90 percent of the imported and domestic products it sells going to restaurants and pizzerias in Nassau, Queens and Brooklyn. The virtual mountains of bags of flour and other products sold in bulk that sit in the store attest to that.
But Sansone sells some of its 1,200 products on a retail basis as well. Despite the cavernous building, the service is as personal as in any neighborhood delicatessen to its loyal customers, Leonardo said, and customers keep coming back.
“Most of our customer base has been with us for the last 25 years,” he said. “The biggest feature here is the cheeses,”
There is a large variety of pecorino, provolone and locatelli, as well as more exotic fare like moliterno and tartufo. Sansone typically stocks 15 to 20 Italian cheeses along with eight varieties of Spanish cheese. But they only slice by bulk weight.
“We don’t really slice or grate,” Mastrantoni said.
They also sell fresh deli meats, such as genoa and soprasata and mortadella, and a wide variety of imported pastas and gluten-free free pastas, extra virgin olive oil. The store offers its own brand of spices and canned tomatoes as well as private-label pepperoni, mozzarella, balsamic vinegar and riccota.
“Restaurants know us for our tomatoes,” Mastrantoni said. “Part of the wholesale business is that you want people to become loyal to your brand.”
He said the quality of Sansone products and the service is what he thinks has fed the business’s success.
The family started working in the food business in the U.S. with a store in the Bushwick section of Brooklyn in 1930.
But Leonardo said he has heard the stories of his great grandfather, Rocco “Roma” Mastrantoni, traveling by horse carriage to Rome from Mount San Giovanni Campagna to sell cheeses, olive oil and cured meats in the big city.
The family’s Bushwick business boomed after World War II when GIs who had served in Italy fueled a demand for pizza, spawning new businesses based on the popular old world dish..
“Pizza became popular after the war so they started delivering pizza products,” Mastrantoni said.
In 1982, Leonardo’s grandfather, Mario, was shopping at the Sansone store at 2147 Jericho Turnpike in New Hyde Park when he learned the business was for sale.
He told Rocco, Leonardo’s father, and Rocco’s brothers Alfonso, Armando and Vincent, who were operating Monte’s Deli in Valley Stream at the time.
They jumped at the opportunity.
They then watched their business join a growing number of pizzerias in the area inlcuding Umberto’s Pizzeria in New Hyde Park watch enjoy the upsurge in popularity of their cuisine.
“We grew at the same time that some of the other Italian businesses started,” Mastrantoni said.
The Mastrantonis expanded into their current 8,000-square foot base of operations at 2133 Jericho in 1986, but still maintain the original location as a 2,000-square foot warehouse down the road.
Leonardo Mastrantonti estimates the business has grown 70 percent in the past decade
Leonardo said he had not intended to join the family.
But after briefly working in the film business and then teaching English in Japan, his father called, asking him to come home and help out 10 yeas ago.
“I felt an obligation,” Leonardo said.
Leonardo said he takes pride in carrying on his family’s tradition in the business and his father is pleased to see his sons involved.
“We want the kids to carry it. It’s there for them,” Rocco Mastrantoni said. “It’s a good living. The pizza business has been growing over the years and people are eating out more.”
The Sansone product line is accessible on its Web site at sansonefoods.com.
