Welcome to Ready Foods.
We are a custom food purveyor in Denver, Colorado, capable of private label co-packing. Ready Foods provides expertise to scale up menu concepts with consistency and quality. We supply a line of our recipes to foodservice outlets under the brand Ready Foods. (You might have first met our brand under the name Marco’s!)
We offer solutions for restaurants, national and regional accounts, healthcare, community and educational institutions, catering, hotels and events. If you have a food service operation, we have solutions for you.
Family owned and operated, Ready Foods has been cooking a variety of recipes for over 50 years. Contact us to learn more about how we can provide innovative kitchen solutions.
Simplify your labor needs.
Short-staffed, have an inexperienced workforce, or are just looking to streamline your kitchen? Our products provide consistency. Each item is ready-to-use, cutting down on prep time, but can still be customized to your flavor profile. Our surveyed operators said their #1 frustration was inconsistent labor, our products can help!
Delicious, not difficult.
Our items arrive to you in 5-pound or less bags and hold on your steam table throughout service. With easy-to-use packaging, you can enjoy 100% yield. Plus, the food can be stored frozen for up to six months, ready when you need it.
Be confident in what you serve.
You run a clean and safe kitchen and you can be assured that we do too. Created in our glass-free facility, be confident serving the food we make on your menu. Learn more about our quality assurance processes here.
We are a world-class company that prepares safe, consistent, quality food for our valued customers. We are employee centered, family owned and strive for excellence in everything we do. We are committed to making our community a better place for another 50 years and beyond.
VISION
We empower our customers and team members by creating delicious recipes that make people happy.
Our Story
In 1972, company founder and immigrant Luis Abarca saw an opportunity to provide cost saving solutions to the growing challenges foodservice operators face. Labor shortages made it difficult to provide consistent menus, and commercial kitchen technology was more accessible for business owners. As diverse cuisine became more mainstream, consumers of all types desired variety in their dining experiences.
With this vision, Ready Foods was founded to supply foodservice operators with quality recipes to be scaled with consistency. Soon after, the Marco's product line was created to provide restaurants with an economical way to serve authentic Mexican cuisine on their menu, based on Luis Abarca’s heritage. Although we have grown from our original kitchen on Colfax Avenue, the Abarca's philosophy continues to provide a vision for Ready Foods over fifty years later. Through years of expansion to our current multi-facility production space, we stand by the integrity of our food, our collective knowledge and the expertise of our workforce.
Ready Foods is proud to be a locally owned and operated Colorado business, capable of craft cooking many cuisines with efficient and intelligent design, that is still a family-owned company with the Abarca family at the helm.
A celebration of our 50th year!
Ready Foods brand products are available through major broadline distributors, contact your local representative for stocked item and special order information. Our dedicated chefs and sales team are ready to provide expertise to scale menu concepts and produce consistent solutions for foodservice outlets.
For additional information on products, distribution, and co-packing contact our sales department:
Marco's Mexican Food is opened by the Abarca family.
The Abarca family starts the Ready Foods company & begins making salsas & tortillas. The Marco's brand lives on as the name for our product line.
Ready Foods begins to partner with local distributors to deliver Marco's products to restaurants.
San Marco's building opens to make handmade tamales in the 8,000 square foot space.
Salsa Plant opens to make an array of authentic salsas, adding 23,000 square feet to our company.
Ready Foods, still family-owned, grows to 100 employees.
Bean Plant opens with 33,000 square feet to cook our ready-to-use beans.
We successfully pass our first AIB Audit for food safety.
Dahlia Plant opens with over 80,000 square feet to make soups, sauces and more.
42nd Street Plant opens to complement Dahlia, with over 63,000 square feet, later it will house a new Marco’s line and state-of-the-art technology for safely producing delicious food.
Our warehouse becomes NSF certified.
New packaging technology is introduced that helps retain its delicious flavor while being efficient in a kitchen.
We successfully complete our first BRC audit and Costco audit.
Ready Foods celebrates 45 years as a family-owned company.
The Marco’s brand thrives with over 35 items.
We begin our lean journey, focusing on continuous improvement and efficiency, while still putting the customer first.
Our QA department goes paperless!
Successfully commercialized a record-setting national LTO from R&D to scale-up.