Minnesota Pizza Roll Magnate Dies

Jeno Paulucci, possibly best known for introducing the pizza roll to the world, has died at age 93.

He started in the business about sixty years ago when he came up with an idea to package take-home Chinese food - and Chun King was started. He initially made his Chinese food in a vegetable packing house and would make a truckload at a time. He did that until he had a plant in Duluth.

Paulucci patented his Divider-Pak which kept the food separate from the sauce in 1957, and later sold the company to R.J. Reynolds in 1966 for $63 million.

Jeno's Inc was founded in 1968. The company sold frozen pizza and snacks. They also came up with that iconic food that combines pizza and an egg roll - the pizza roll. Paulucci sold that company to Pillsbury in 1985 for $135 million.

Jeno's Pizza Rolls were then rebranded as Totino's Pizza Rolls.

He also founded Michelina's in the early 1990s, and in 2006 published a book about his life titled "Jeno: The Power Of The Peddler."

Paulucci was born in 1918 in Aurora, Minnesota to immigrants from Italy. He graduated from Hibbing High School in 1935.

The cause of death was renal and coronary failure, and he died just four days after his wife Lois passed away.