Pasta Evangelists’ Alessandro Savelli on his ‘romantic and beautiful’ product

It’s two o’clock in the afternoon, or lunchtime if you’re Italian. Pasta Evangelists boss Alessandro Savelli is scrolling the menu of his brand’s inaugural restaurant in Richmond, London. Options include agnolotti cacio e pepe, mushroom tagliatelle and the bestselling spinach and ricotta ‘dragon’ pasta.

“Let’s try these ones,” he says, choosing some nocellara olives and garlic bread. “They’re new, so I’m seeing them today for the first time.”

He’s ordering via a digital screen – one of the key features of the fast-casual setup. For those who want a more personal experience, there is counter service available. And for those who would rather not leave their homes, a delivery service has also been included.

Even though there’s a digital option, the premises has a distinctly traditional feel. Terracotta walls are lined with the kind of photographs that would adorn a family Italian restaurant. Seating is at wooden tables.

The opening of this branch in July – the beginning of plans for a 20-strong estate by 2029 – was a landmark moment for Pasta Evangelists. Having started out as a recipe box brand eight years ago, it soon rolled out concessions and secured listings on Ocado in 2019, before this year placing its bets on hospitality.

With turnover of almost £40m last year, Pasta Evangelists has certainly come a long way since Savelli first conceived the concept in 2016, when making tortelloni by hand. He realised the UK was missing “an amazing fresh pasta and sauce brand”.

Coming from a banking background, he had no experience in food and drink. What he had done, though, was create his own luxury brand – a smartphone and accessories business called Savelli Genève.

These credentials proved useful when creating an unashamedly premium pasta brand. “I knew right away I was the right person to make a pasta business happen. I’m Italian, I love creating unique brands, I have experience building businesses – and I love eating pasta,” he laughs.

It’s the reverse of the typical path followed by foodie brands, which tend to establish a following in hospitality before venturing into grocery or DTC. For Savelli, that unconventional route was born out of an agreement with his two co-founders to be “independent from day one”. That meant initially going DTC, rather than tying themselves to a single retailer or physical space.

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“By launching recipe kits, we could start selling very quickly,” he says. “We didn’t want to have to convince the supermarkets to stock our product. And a restaurant wasn’t something we had in mind either. We started in e-commerce strategically, thinking more and more people would be buying food online and using meal kits in years to come.”

They were right. The brand was able to ride the DTC boom that kicked off during the pandemic. It went from selling 200 meal kits in year one to more than a million in 2023 – turbocharged by Covid, when demand soared by 300%.

Omnichannel shift

Yet even as meal kits were flying out of the company’s tiny east London factory, it became clear the format had to change for the brand to achieve its potential. “During Covid, our business grew 10 times bigger in just 10 days. After that, e-commerce started to slow, so we pivoted the business into the physical space.”

The shift into omnichannel, which included concessions in M&S and Harrods along with the opening of takeaway sites – from 19 in 2022 to almost 50 today – soon caught the eye of a very influential pasta maker.

In 2021 came Savelli’s “happiest career moment”: Barilla, the world’s largest pasta company, bought Pasta Evangelists for a reported sum of £40m. “Partnering with Barilla was a dream come true,” he says. “Suddenly we had the biggest pasta company in the world ready to invest in us.”

Barilla’s cash injection not only enabled the company to open its Acton factory, which cooks 70 tonnes of pasta a week, but also propelled its move into restaurants. Savelli describes the launch of its Richmond  site as both “scary” and “invigorating”. It’s since opened a second London restaurant in Greenwich and a grab & go outlet in Manchester Airport this month.

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Pasta Evangelists moved into a bigger factory in Acton in 2023

Source: Pasta Evangelists

Source: The Grocer

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“London has always been our petri dish for experimenting,” says Savelli. “But regardless of where customers come from, pasta is recognisable and adaptable. And since it’s quick to prepare, it has potential to work very well in travel hubs. Airports are a great target for the pasta segment because of the international traffic.”

While the brand has no plans to drop its DTC and retail elements – Ocado, for example, is “great business for us” – restaurants are now the sole strategic focus.

“The plan is to go international next year,” Savelli  adds. “My vision is to have hundreds, even thousands, of restaurants. The US, France, China – after going 360 degrees with Pasta Evangelists in the UK, we’re ready.”

Savelli believes, with the right offering, it’s possible to establish his brand as a food-to-go staple. “For example, in Italy, most people have a café of choice. But Starbucks is growing there. And in Starbucks, you get coffee in a different way. As long as the quality is there, the way people consume the product can change.”

For Savelli, the unique selling points for Pasta Evangelists are its commitment to quality, and passion for bringing innovative pasta dishes to the mass market. The aim is to introduce consumers to much more than the standard spaghetti and penne recipes.

“Pasta is romantic and beautiful. From day one the goal was to evangelise it, almost religiously – introducing regional specialities, shapes, fillings, and new sauces and combinations. I love feeding customers food they’ve never had before.”