Chef Boyardee is a brand of canned pasta products sold internationally by ConAgra Foods. Named after its founder, Italian-American immigrant Ettore Boiardi, the line began production in the United States in the 1920s.

In 1924, Boiardi opened the Giardino d’Italia restaurant at East 9th Street and Woodland Avenue in Cleveland, Ohio.[2] The product line which would become Chef Boyardee began when satisfied restaurant customers began asking Boiardi for his recipe and samples of his ingredients. As demand outgrew his restaurant kitchen, he opened a factory in 1928, moving production to Milton, Pennsylvania ten years later. Upon mass distribution, he decided to name his product “Boy-Ar-Dee” to help Americans properly pronounce his name.