A small South Texas town of about 5,700 may seem an unlikely birthplace for a brand synonymous with Super Bowl parties and Southern casseroles.
But Elsa, about 25 miles north of the U.S.-Mexico border, is where Ro-Tel’s popular canned tomatoes and peppers originated. Though production moved out of state in the late 1990s, the popular brand persists, producing tens of millions of cans each year. Ro-Tel (stylized as RO*TEL on the cans) was founded by Elsa’s Carl Roettele in 1943. The vegetable canner-turned-entrepreneur combined
