PASTA
Pasta to the
rescue
Pasta has been the go-to, staple product for many in recent times in allowing restaurants to continue to serve up traditional Italian fayre in takeaway and delivery formats, as well as proving to be an in demand, store cupboard staple for the wider population. COMPETING DEMANDS When the first enforced lockdown was imposed, premium Italian pasta brand, Garofalo, reports that it continued to provide a vital service to its customers, by supporting businesses in keeping them supplied with pasta. That was only possible due to the commitment shown by all the people who work at Garofalo, both here in the UK and in their factory in Italy. “The challenges were unprecedented and at times logistically impossible. All non-essential employees at the factory in Gragnano, were working from home in ‘lockdown’ but still sourcing everything the factory needed to keep producing pasta. Overnight demand grew by 300%, all of our production team worked tirelessly to keep the factory producing as much pasta as possible, despite huge pressure from every customer globally,” says Sally Assinder, marketing manager at Garofalo UK. “Producing enough pasta was the first challenge, but then we had to get it from 24
the south of Italy to our UK warehouse and then to our customers. But with the support of Italian hauliers, shipping companies and our UK logistics provider we succeeded!” Having come out of that period of huge demand, the company say that they gradually started to get back to a sensible level of trading, but still considerably higher than normal. However, with the threat of another partial, or full, lockdown, they have seen another huge spike in demand from their customers (the last week of September sales being one of their largest this year). “We still face challenges in keeping up with demand and unfortunately some of our more ‘specialised’ shapes of pasta (both long and short) have had to stop being produced in favour of allowing more production time for shapes such as fusilli and penne which have been in the most demand,” adds Sally Assinder. “Whilst our retail customers are enjoying the benefits of more pasta being consumed at home, our customers in the
restaurant and hospitality sector are not so fortunate. Many have diversified and found novel ways to carry on trading and gradually most are getting back to some normality and seeing customers return to dining out. We all hope that this can continue as another closing of restaurants will be devastating to the sector.” At the same time, the premium brand point out that they are now facing price increases in durum wheat, losses on the exchange rate and UK logistic increases. The uncertainty of Brexit (hard or soft) will surely result in Sterling devaluation, they feel, at least in the short period. It is also still not known if companies will face tariffs, and surely delays in clearing customs will add to further costs in delayed transport, they warn. As a result, they feel it is inevitable that retail prices will need to increase, as cost prices will surely move up. November 2020
Pizza
