Yahoo News Made in London: meet the founder of Pasta Evangelists
Pasta by post. Sounds barmy, when you think of the potential for squelch and sogginess. Pasta Evangelists, though, is a business that specialises in selling different varieties of handmade pasta as good as - if not better than - anything you’ll have had in someone’s home or restaurant, and posts them through your letterbox (London, and nationwide).
Alex Savelli, the British-Italian entrepreneur behind the idea, initially delivered 30 portions of gnocchi with pesto alla Genovese to friends and family in October 2015; the business now sells around 600 portions every week. The founding team includes the former CEO of Anya Hindmarch, James McArthur, former consultant Chris Reynoldson, and three “pasta evangelists” including the cookery school founder Prue Leith.
Why did you start the business?
It had to be something I liked, because my previous company wasn’t something I was passionate about and, as cheesy as it sounds, I am Italian, I have Italian food every day, including pasta, I lived there for 20 years, and I’ve cooked since I was 14. This was also about seeing a business opportunity. I noticed that there were several waves of improvement in almost every single food and beverage sector - for burgers, pizzas, coffee and so on - uplifting the products, freshness and branding, except not for pasta. In supermarkets, the product hadn’t evolved since the Sacla pesto days yet now people want to eat fresh and seasonal things. So with this I wanted to try to bring Italianita, which means Italian-ness - doing things as an Italian would - to London, by making and delivering extremely fresh products.
How many products do you make?
We have between five and six dishes to choose from each week, but we’ve served 100 different recipes since the beginning, including things like pulled pork ragu, beef shin ragu or pistachio pesto. We’ve also recently just doubled our growth, and now sell 600 portions every week. We’ve just launched pasta subscriptions, and we also team up with different businesses and do pasta masterclasses with them. Recently we collaborated with Bonnie Gull restaurant with Polpo and Obika restaurants joining up in February.
Where are the ingredients from?
For our bianche pastas (the ones without egg, like orechiette) and our egg pastas - tortelloni, ravioli, pappardelle - we use fine OO flour or a stoneground organic flour from Gilchesters Organics UK. We also use free-range eggs. For the fillings, we collaborate with London makers, so ingredients are from a variety of places.
How is the pasta made?
From 7am until 4pm, there are three people cooking, pasta making and packaging in our production kitchen in West London. They make three weekly batches of pasta, sauces and garnishes so that it’s always as fresh as possible - they fold the tortelloni by hand, and use the tools on a pasta making machine to create different shapes and sizes. Pappardelle and spaghetti, for example, need to be flatter, while short pastas are different again. They also fill some with things like ricotta, and finally they create garnishes which might be grissini crumb, pecorino cheese, or toasted hazelnuts. Unlike supermarket pasta, which is pasteurised - or cooked, to ensure a long shelf life - ours lasts only a few days as we don’t do this.
Do you still eat your products?
Almost every day! I had the artichoke lasagne yesterday, the tagliolini with almond pesto before that, and tonight I’m going to try out new recipes.
Describe a day in your life.
It could be anything from a discussion about the product, to sorting out what to do when a packer hasn’t shown up, to meeting what we call our ‘evangelists’ like Giles Coren, to interviewing new staff. There are also mundane but key things like deliveries, packaging and raising capital.
Which other London producers do you admire?
Patricia Michelson, founder of La Fromagerie cheese shop in Marylebone. She is phenomenally charismatic, very impressive, has tonnes of stories, amazing products and a good brand. There’s also Silvia di Luzio who is really impressive and runs a small Italian catering business called Doppio Zero (doppiozero.co.uk), making Italian food for both smaller or more high-profile clients like Ferrari.
Finally, I admire Simona di Vietri, founder of the brilliant London mozzarella business, La Latteria.
