'Future is the USA' for Pasta Evangelists, the £40m British made success story
Nearly a decade ago, Alessandro Savelli attended a pasta class, making tortelloni by hand and “licking my wounds” after the Italian-born entrepreneur’s luxury goods business of eight years had folded. "Why wasn't there a premium artisanal fresh pasta brand?” he had thought to himself.
A few weeks later he was selling gnocchi al pesto — a recipe from his grandmother growing up in Genoa — to friends in London for £12.88.
“I think it helps if you're doing something you have a strong affinity and passion for,” says Savelli, “where your family's worked in and it's part of your heritage or education."
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British fresh pasta maker Pasta Evangelists was started by Savelli and two subsequent co-founders, marketeer Finn Lagun and finance expert Chris Rennoldson. Their partnership began with a deli counter in Harrods Food Halls after the launch of Savelli's recipe kit service in 2016.
In 2018, the brand rose to fame after being rejected by Dragons' Den for its £2m valuation. In a remarkable riposte after being marked out as "pasta le disaster" by a Dragon investor, the firm was sold for £40m to the world’s largest pasta company, Barilla, following a majority stake deal.
“Since I was a child, my [Italian] father had a meaningful impact on my professional development,” says Savelli, born to an English teacher mother.
“He's probably taught me how anything is possible, which is inspiring. For you to really do it, it helps to have seen firsthand someone do it, rather than just reading it in a book or seeing it on YouTube.”
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Having graduated in business economics at University of Exeter, Savelli worked as an investment banker with ABN AMRO and UBS ( UBS ) before obtaining an MBA at Columbia Business School and starting his luxury smartphone brand, Savelli Geneve. Then came the cookery school course which changed his fortunes.
Under Savelli, Lagun and Rennoldson, turnover grew from £69,000 in 2017 to £10.5m three years later. “Most people think that if you start a company, you should do it with someone that you know and this is a great example of the opposite,” says Savelli.
“What we tried to do was create a team of founders with different skill sets and different personalities.”
Despite Dragons' Den failure, Savelli says the experience proved to be a "phenomenally successful" launchpad for the company.
He adds that the yin and yang of failure and success continues throughout the company with “high frequency”, as Pasta Evangelists announced itself as a disruptor on the European food scene.
Having started with cook-at-home pasta and sauce, the founders pivoted to also offering home-delivered cooked pasta and had sold the business to Barilla in a multi-million pound deal within six months, the trio staying at the helm.
“What surprised me is that some of the dynamics pre- and post-acquisition remain the same,” Savelli says.
“The intensity, the number of hours worked, the stress. I thought I was done with pitching.
"Instead, you're pitching internally, commercially and for people to join the business like I was doing beforehand.”
Thanks to Barilla’s investment, the company creates its pastas and sauces from its state-of-the-art London location, with Savelli admitting that e-commerce global decline after COVID saw recipe kit businesses rethink business strategy.
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Pasta Evangelists now has over 350 employees, serving up 200,000 portions of pasta per month, opened its first fresh pasta factory in North Acton in 2023 and also runs the UK’s biggest fresh pasta cookery school.
It delivers in 50 UK towns and cities and harbours ambition to bring its restaurant arm to 15 locations by the end of 2025.
“The future is the USA,” adds Savelli. “It’s the biggest market for Italian food and pasta, number one for restaurants and is our priority for the future.
"For some reason, Italian cuisine does not have an owner in the restaurant space and I think Pasta Evangelists will become this brand."
CEO Says: Alessandro Savelli on…
Leadership
I'm not the best manager in the world and I have lots to learn there. But we have grown to several hundred employees and I try to be physically present and everyone in the company has my phone number. That's leadership; being present, at the forefront, knowing people's names and approachable.
Copy brands
You need that kind of founder intensity that very few people have. Small businesses, micro businesses, even larger companies have tried to replicate what we've done globally. We’ve changed business models and many people in the past have copied what we were doing. Inevitably they're not copying what we'll do in the future.
I don't really like it when people copy. It bugs me because they do eat market share. So I'd rather they wouldn't. But ultimately, I know they won't be successful.
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