Pasta producers are advised to overcome “carb-phobic” obstacles
Carl Zuanelli, the National Pasta Association’s chairman of the board of directors, gave an impassioned farewell speech in which he urged members to “make a lot of happy lives: Find pasta. Make pasta,” embrace the pasta-loving millennial generation in the largest pasta market in the world, and see opportunities in every challenge.
The condition of the industry speech by Mr. Zuanelli His four-year term as chairman came to an end on March 20, which also emphasized the US pasta industry’s robust post-pandemic position.
The pasta industry faced significant obstacles during the COVID-19 pandemic, but these weren’t the first, according to Mr. Zuanelli, the creator and former CEO of Stratford, Connecticut-based Nuovo Pasta Productions Ltd.
“It’s easy for me to sum up the pasta industry in one word: resilient,” he said. “Our industry has been subjected to relentless attacks that began in Italy nearly a century ago.”
He related how the poet Filippo Marinetti wrote a “manifesto of futurist cooking” in the December 1930 issue of La Cucina Italiano, labeling pasta “an absurd gastronomic Italian religion” and advocating for its extermination. According to Mr. Zuanelli, the attack has taken the shape of ideas that pasta is the evil carbohydrate.
Pasta’s unfavorable reputation for health has, however, faded in the last two years due to supply chain interruptions and inflation, which Mr. Zuanelli described as “challenges not seen for a generation of Americans.”
Winston Churchill once observed, “The optimist sees an opportunity in every difficulty, sees the ability to increase productivity because of cost pressures, both in ingredients and equipment.” The pessimist, on the other hand, sees difficulties in every opportunity. “In spite of everything, the pasta industry not only endures but flourishes.”
Pasta sales in the US were down before COVID, with the exception of fresh pasta, but they have now recovered, according to Mr. Zuanelli. In US dollars, total pasta sales increased to $3.665 billion during the pandemic’s first year, dropped to $3.285 billion by the end of January 2022, and then increased to $3.917 billion by the end of February. During the era, dollar sales increased due to price hikes, but unit sales remained essentially unchanged.
“Even though we were all severely kicked in the middle of the margins, we are definitely making progress now,” Mr. Zuanelli remarked. It was difficult for us to meet the demand that was out there. Suppliers of pasta equipment had trouble obtaining goods. In many cases, our facilities were not able to generate more. Many of us have observed—and still observe—products missing from the pasta area of the grocery store. The problem is with supply, not demand, and it will be resolved once supply networks return to normalcy.
The roughly 80 million consumers known as millennials—those born between 1980 and today—have shown themselves to be ardent advocates of the pasta sector. According to Mr. Zuanelli, this demographic makes up the largest share of purchases and is expected to overtake baby boomers in terms of purchasing power by 2033. The group is known for being foodies who enjoy cooking, use food as a means of self-expression and peer connection, and are obsessed with terms like organic, artisanal, local, grass-fed, and handmade. They also spend $72 billion annually on consumer packaged goods.
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Compared to previous generations, millennials travel more, are more accepting of different types of food, and value authenticity more, he claimed. This was evident in the group’s fondness of eating out prior to the epidemic, but as the world stopped and the economy shrank, they became eager to replicate restaurant experiences at home.
Mr. Zuanelli declared, “This is not where we were four years ago, and this is perfect for pasta and our industry.” “This hyper-carbophobic consumer is no longer our challenge. I sincerely hope that we can all move past it and see how much the public is embracing our sector.