Louis Allen immigrates to the U.S. from Poland, leaving behind his wife and young sons and settles in to the river town of St. Louis, MO. He gets his start as a peddler selling clothing and small household goods in O’Fallon, IL. With just enough money in his pocket to make it to town, his first day of business was almost his last. With the help of a lenient local marshal and a bit of good fortune, on his first day of business he was able to earn enough to purchase a three-month peddler’s license

Louis Allen becomes quite the businessman, earning enough to bring his family over from Poland, purchase a horse and wagon and establish L. Allen & Sons Company General Store with his three sons, Harry, Ben, and Albert in O’Fallon, IL. This allowed customers to come to the Allen family for their groceries and merchandise for the first time. 

Building on the continued success of the general store, the Allen family opens their first grocery store in O’Fallon, IL. Over the next 30 years, this grocery store would grow into a regional chain with several locations across southwestern Illinois.

L. Allen & Sons Company receives its first military contract for food distribution to Scott Air Force Base. This would lead to distribution rights to other military bases and eventually institutional locations.

As the family business continued to expand, it outgrew its original distribution facility and moved across the river to St. Louis, MO into a larger facility. With this move, a name change would soon follow, and in 1949, L. Allen & Sons Company was renamed Allen Foods, Inc and the move across the river would put them at the current location of Lasco Foods, Inc. on Gustine Ave.

L. Allen & Sons Company General Store was destroyed by fire on May 23^rd, 1953. This moment marked the passage of the business into a new era in the 1950s and severed the remaining ties it had to the city of O’Fallon, IL where the family store operated since 1904.

Harry, Al, and Ben Allen create Halben Food Manufacturing Company (a combination of their names) to open the opportunity for Allen Foods, Inc. to move from a food distributor to a broadline distributor. Halben Food Manufacturing would operate out of the Gustine location and under Halben Food Manufacturing Company, and the private label brand Lasco is created.

In keeping up with the trends of the food industry, Allen Foods, Inc. would introduce their own Lasco line of frozen foods to the company’s inventory. This new addition would provide so much growth for the company that it soon outgrew its warehouse capacity, again.

Needing a new facility that could accommodate the ever-expanding Allen Foods, Inc. the decision was made to move operations for Allen Foods, Inc. to the new St. Louis community of Overland in 1972. Halben Food Manufacturing Company would continue it operations at the Gustine location in south St. Louis.

The third generation of the Allen family would take over leadership of the company when Stanley Allen (son of Ben Allen) was named president. He was joined in the running of the company by other family members of his generation: Rick Allen (Son of   Allen), Joel Allen (Son of Albert Allen), and Louis Cohen (Married Evelyn Allen, daughter of Ben Allen). 

Allen Foods, Inc would enjoy exceptional growth during the 80’s and expands its operations adding fresh produce in 1986. The following year, Allen Foods, Inc. acquires Marske Produce Company. 

Allen Foods, Inc. expands its customer base to include a wide range of institutional customers including casinos, schools, and prisons. This was a direct result from the trends surrounding the St. Louis area and the growth the city saw as the turn of the century grew closer. 

The times were a changing for family-owned-and-operated food companies at the turn of the century. Large corporations continued buying up family businesses in the food industry in and around the city of St. Louis, and Allen Foods, Inc. would eventually meet that same fate. In December of 2002, US Foods acquired Allen Foods, Inc. 

Halben Food Manufacturing Company was not part of that sale, and the Allen family would continue to operate this business until summer of 2004. On June 16^th, 2004, Halben Food Manufacturing Company was sold to a group of local St. Louis investors who would change the name of the food manufacturer, Lasco Foods, Inc. This name was a callback to the private label brand Lasco, which was an acronym for L. Allen and Sons Company.  

After Ellinwood took over in the early 2000’s, Lasco Foods, Inc. moved away from large institutional food product manufacturing for businesses like schools, prisons, and casinos, and focused on suppling restaurants and retail locations with cocktail mixes, beverage mixes, salad dressings and BBQ sauces. To continue this direction for the business, in 2010, Lasco Foods, Inc. would introduce its first privately held brand Nina’s Cocktails. 

To further align with the goal of supplying restaurants and retail locations and strengthen their salad dressing portfolio, on January 3^rd, 2023, Lasco Foods, Inc. acquired Hendrickson’s Dressing. The acquisition of Hendrickson’s Dressing helps position Lasco Foods, Inc. as a great retail and restaurant partner. 

Today Lasco Foods, Inc. still operates out of the original Halben Food Manufacturing Company facility on Gustine Ave. Although Lasco has moved away from BBQ sauce manufacturing, Lasco Foods, Inc. continues to produce the same recipe margarita cocktail mix powders it originally formulated in the 1950’s along with several cocktail mixes under the Nina’s Cocktails brand and salad dressings under the Hendrickson’s Dressing brand.