Where pizza dough used by every Papa Gino's location is made

The latest breaking updates, delivered straight to your email inbox.

Every pizza produced by Papa Gino's, the restaurant that calls itself the "official pizza of New Englanders," starts at the same place.

The secret but simple ingredients in Papa Gino's famous pizza dough are blended together at the New England Authentic Eats commissary plant in Walpole, Massachusetts.

The commissary was opened 25 years ago to mass produce the pizza dough, which is used at every Papa Gino's restaurant throughout New England.

The plant has a flour silo that can hold 72,000 pounds and each batch produces 560 pounds of dough.

"(The dough divider) scales it to the exact weight of the dough balls required. So once it exits that, a machine rounds it into a dough ball," said Giovanni Conti, manager of the commissary plant. "Then we have people packing them into boxes. We put the lids on them ... and then they go directly into the holding cooler. Then, they go into the trucks for delivery."

"We'll produce about 4.2 million dough balls here this year," said Tim Lamson, executive vice president of supply chain at New England Authentic Eats.

Lamson said even though ownership of Papa Gino's may have changed over the years, the company stays true to its history and famous name.

"It is a New England name that started 65 years ago and started by a man by the name of Mike Valerio and his wife, Helen," he said. "The first one was in East Boston. It was called 'Piece O' Pizza.'"

No matter where customers get their Papa Gino's pizza, Lamson said they can be assured that a commitment to consistency and freshness all starts with the dough that is made in Walpole.

"The ingredients are unique and they haven't changed since Day one," Lamson said. "All the formulas have remained the same."