Potato chips inspired by local ravioli, stromboli, and pierogi are competing in Herr’s Flavored by Philly contest, and now it’s crunch time

Potato chips inspired by ravioli, stromboli, and pierogi — all based on products from Philadelphia-area family businesses — are competing in this year’s Flavored by Philly contest, which is sponsored by Herr Foods, the Chester County snack-food manufacturer, itself a family-run company.

The lineup: cheese ravioli and marinara from Talluto’s, potato pierogi from Mom-Mom’s Kitchen, and stromboli from Romano’s, which invented the baked deli sandwich in 1950. They were culled from more than 1,000 nominations, Herr’s said.

Bags of the limited-time-only chips are in stores, and voting closes Aug. 9. The person who nominated the winning flavor will receive a $5,000 prize, while the business behind the flavor will win $10,000 to a charity of its choice.

» READ MORE: Take a tour of the Herr's factory in Chester County

Last year’s winner was a riff on Corropolese Bakery’s tomato pie, which outpolled the flavors based on John’s Roast Pork sandwich and Mike’s BBQ’s Korean BBQ wings.

The Herr’s contest started in 2022 with generic flavors: “Wiz Wit,” “(215) Special Sauce,” and that year’s winner, Long Hots & Sharp Provolone.

This year’s competitors all said they were impressed at the interplay between themselves and Herr’s to nail the flavors. “It went back and forth a number of times and we all were unanimous with the final product,” said Ryan Elmore, a partner in Mom-Mom’s Kitchen, whose pierogi are critically acclaimed.

Herr’s dropped off samples, so I can provide tasting notes. There was no clear winner in my family.

Ryan Elmore and Kaitlin Wines started selling Polish food from a cart in Northern Liberties in 2014 before opening a dining room in Bridesburg in 2018. They had high hopes in 2020 after a Diners, Drive-Ins, and Dives rave from Guy Fieri for the cheesesteak pierogi when the pandemic forced a pivot to selling their foods frozen. As business thawed in 2021, they opened a takeout window at 1505 South St. next to Bob & Barbara’s Lounge. In coming weeks, Mom-Mom’s will join up with Carbon Copy in a new tasting room at 3124 Richmond St. in Port Richmond.

The chips — potato on potato — have a creamy, almost buttery sweet onion flavor. “We built it around sour cream and onion chips but instead of the brighter green onion and chive flavor, we leaned into caramelized onions a little bit more so they have some sweeter notes to them,” Elmore said.

A stromboli is neither a calzone nor a panzarotti (another Italian delicacy invented in the Philadelphia area). The original is an oven-baked sandwich — ham, Cotechino salami, cheese, and peppers in a bread dough pocket, no tomato sauce within — that for 74 years has been the signature product of the Romano family’s corner pizzeria in Essington, Delaware County.

During the Depression, Italian immigrant Nazzereno “Nat” Romano sold tomato pie from a cart in South Philadelphia. In 1944, the widower brought his son, Peter, and daughter, Ceil, to live in Essington, a manufacturing hub along the Delaware in Tinicum Township, and opened a pizzeria.

Business grew from the nearby shipyards and major employers like Scott Paper and Westinghouse. Romano, a stone mason by trade, built a new pizzeria nearby from the ground up.

In January 1950, Romano was tinkering with a roll-up of lunch meats and dough. He set one on the counter and asked Bill Schofield, Ceil’s future husband, to name it.

He called it a stromboli, after the hottest ticket in America: the Roberto Rossellini movie starring Ingrid Bergman. They were priced at 45 cents (now $19.99).

“I was there,” said Peter Romano Sr., 92, whose son, Peter Jr., 70, now runs the shop. All four Romano kids — daughters Diana Romano Ellixson, Bonny Romano Werline, and Denise Romano Collins — worked there at one time or another. (Say the family name “ro-MAN-oh,” not “ro-MAHHN-oh,” because Delco.)

After manufacturing jobs left Essington, Romano’s had the good fortune of catching business from the expanding Philadelphia International Airport a mile away. Pilots and flight attendants stopped at Romano’s on their way to their hotel. One regular jet route’s scheduled arrival time was 20 minutes after the 11 p.m. closing. “They’d call in their orders in-flight from the plane and say, ‘Wait for us. We’re coming,’” the elder Romano said. The humble shop chugs along, thanks to local loyalists and curiosity-seekers driven by TV food shows.

The flavor profile of the Romano’s chip is based on the “special hot” variety, which gets a kick from hot banana peppers. We picked up mildly garlicky cheese undertones and oomph from jalapeños but this is not a “hot chip” in the least.

Joseph Talluto, a son of Sicilian immigrants, was a chef in Philip’s Restaurant in South Philadelphia. In 1967, on the cusp of 60 years old, he followed his dream. He sold the family rowhouse for $7,500 to buy a $7,400 ravioli machine and opened a pasta business in a building he owned at 61st Street and Elmwood Avenue in Southwest Philadelphia. He and his wife, by then empty-nesters, lived in an apartment above the shop.

Son Joe Talluto had just returned from Vietnam and planned to become a sheet-metal worker. His father insisted that he work for him. Their pasta business grew through the 1980s, thanks to white-tablecloth Italian restaurants. “Pasta had become a center-of-the-plate item by then and it was the only center-of-the-plate item that didn’t shrink when you cooked it,” Joseph Talluto, Joe’s son and the third generation, said last week.

The company expanded into wholesale — there’s a 60,000-square-foot plant in Folcroft, Delaware County — and retail with shops in the Italian Market in Philadelphia, Ridley Park, and Norristown.

Joe, married to Carmella, died in 2019 at age 74. Their children — Joanne Talluto Brown, Jennifer Talluto, Angela Talluto Storti, and Joseph Talluto— now run the company, which has 100 employees. “They are genuinely the strength of this business,” Talluto said.

The Talluto chips taste remarkably like ravioli in Talluto’s marinara, which is “designed so the brightness and the fruits of tomato shine,” Talluto said.

On the chip, the first taste is tomato (from the tomato powder, parsley, basil, and a hint of garlic), and then comes a cheese flavor that’s not cheese at all but torula yeast, a popular ingredient that delivers umami.