Lasorda's spaghetti sauce is in hot water; Dodgers manager's spicy venture wallows in red ink.

Lasorda's spaghetti sauce is in hot water

Manager Tommy Lasorda's Los Angeles Dodgers have opened another baseball season to fanfare and high expectations, but there is little cheering for another Lasorda venture - his celebrity spaghetti sauce.

Lasorda's Fountain Valley-based

* The company reported a $258,000 fourth-quarter loss, bringing its loss for all of 1990 to $598,000. Sales were $1.4 million for the year, including $397,000 in the fourth quarter.

* The company's auditor, Steven Masler, in his opinion accompanying the company's earnings report, said the recurring losses "raise doubts about its ability to continue as a going concern."

* Lasorda's sauces continue to lose market share. The company had only 1.3 percent of the Southern California spaghetti marinara sauce market for the four weeks ending Feb. 23, down from 2.7 percent in the same period a year ago, according to A.C. Nielsen Co.

* Lasorda's staff was evicted in March from its plant and warehouse in Rialto. The company apparently has not made any sauce since late last year. It has been selling from inventory.

* The company has been dropped by its food broker, Advantage Sales & Marketing, leaving Lasorda to handle distribution and marketing itself.

* Mark Quackenbush, president of the now-defunct United California Brands, which made the sauce, has claimed that the recipe for the sauce came from his employee - not Lasorda's grandmother, as widely publicized. Lasorda Foods' lawyer denied the Quackenbush claim, but company officials otherwise declined to comment for this story.

The fourth quarter loss came despite statements in December by company officials that they expected a rebound.

Still, Lasorda's SEC filing indicates a company not ready to throw in the towel. The company said it is in the final stages of negotiating a new principal co-packer agreement, which presumably would enable it to resume manufacturing.

The company said it has arranged with Merrill Lynch for a $500,000 working capital loan. The loan, when finalized, will be personally guaranteed by Tommy Lasorda.

The company also said it has been talking with several venture capital companies about investing "substantial sums" in a national marketing campaign. Distribution of the sauce is currently restricted, for the most part, to Southern California.