Who Owns Them?
There is a misconception out there that Prego and Ragu are owned by the same company. This is false as you will read below.
Prego is a brand of the Campbell Soup Company. It was launched by the company in 1981 as a way to diversify from the company’s popular canned soup products. Prego was an instant success in year one hauling in an approximate $100 million in sales.
Ragu is owned by the Japanese food company, Mizkan. Mizkan purchased Ragu (U.S.) and fellow pasta/sauce brand Bertolli in 2014 from Unilever for over $2 billion. Mizkan also owns Holland House, Nakano, Nature’s Intent, and other brands.
Ingredients
The two brands make a wide array of sauces. For the sake of simplicity, we will compare the ingredients of the traditional sauces that each brand makes.
Prego Traditional Sauce – Tomato Puree (Water, Tomato Paste), Diced Tomatoes In Tomato Juice, Sugar, Canola Oil, Contains Less Than 1% Of: Salt, Dehydrated Onions, Spices, Citric Acid, Dehydrated Garlic, Onion Extract, Garlic Extract.
Ragu Old World Style Traditional Sauce – Tomato Puree (Water, Tomato Paste), Salt, Olive Oil, Sugar, Dehydrated Onions, Dehydrated Garlic, Spices, Garlic Powder, Onion Powder.
The two sauces share many similar ingredients. However, there are two notable differences. Firstly, the Prego sauce has diced tomatoes, which is not an ingredient in Ragu. This creates a chunkier texture for the Prego. Secondly, Prego uses canola oil vs the olive oil used in Ragu. It appears Ragu recently switched oil or added it since their labeling contains the verbiage “Now With Olive Oil”.
Nutrition Facts
Again, we used the two traditional sauces made by each brand. When you compare the nutrition facts of Prego vs Ragu, there are not any major differences. Ragu is slightly better nutritionally with less calories, total fat, carbs, and sugar. However, we would suspect that the small difference in nutrition is not a major factor to select one brand over the other for most consumers.
| Prego Traditional Sauce | Ragu Old World Style Traditional Sauce | |
| Serving Size | 1/2 Cup | 1/2 Cup |
| Calories | 70 | 60 |
| Total Fat | 1.5g | 1g |
| Saturated Fat | 0g | 0g |
| Cholesterol | 0mg | 0mg |
| Sodium | 480mg | 480mg |
| Total Carbs | 13g | 11g |
| Dietary Fiber | 2g | 3g |
| Sugars | 9g | 8g |
| Protein | 2g | 2g |
| Calcium | 2% | 2% |
| Iron | 4% | 4% |
Price
We examined the prices of Prego vs Ragu for their traditional 45 ounce sauces at five different grocery stores. You can see the results below. Based on the average prices, Prego was .71 cents more expensive than Ragu.
While prices will vary based on where you shop, Ragu appears to be the most budget-friendly option of the two sauces. Ragu was not priced higher than Prego at any of the stores we researched.
| Store | Prego Traditional Sauce | Ragu Old World Style Traditional Sauce |
| Walmart | $3.30 (45 oz.) | $2.74 (45 oz.) |
| Kroger | $3.99 (45 oz.) | $2.99 (45 oz.) |
| Meijer | $3.69 (45 oz.) | $2.99 (45 oz.) |
| Food Lion | $3.88 (45 oz.) | $3.09 (45 oz.) |
| Giant Eagle | $3.99 (45 oz.) | $3.49 (45 oz.) |
| Average Price | $3.77 | $3.06 |
Taste and Texture
Check out the below video from FoodFights that provides an in-depth discussion on the taste and texture of Prego vs Ragu traditional sauces.
The Poll: Prego vs Ragu
Please take a second to vote for your favorite between Prego, Ragu, or neither. We are interested to learn what brand our readers prefer (if any).
