British pasta start off-up marketed to Italian giant Barilla

Some could decide it as staying akin to marketing ice to the Eskimos, or flowers to the Dutch: A British-based pasta shipping and delivery start-up which counts Fantastic British Bake-Off choose Prue Leith between its shareholders is remaining sold to a giant of Italy’s meals marketplace.

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Prue Leith is between PE’s traders

Sky Information has learnt that Pasta Evangelists has agreed a offer well worth approximately £40m to be taken around by Barilla Team, a 133-calendar year-previous pasta and bakery organization.

Insiders explained the deal would be announced on Thursday.

The transaction will symbolize a triumph for British entrepreneurship, and crystallise a handsome payday for the company’s founders, which include former banker Alessandro Savelli.

Foodstuff supply firms have thrived for the duration of the pandemic, with takeaway and food-package assembly start out-ups both equally looking at history sales amid soaring desire from locked-down buyers.

Institutional buyers in Pasta Evangelists together with Guinness Asset Management and Pembroke VCT are expected to provide their shareholdings as component of the deal, although the latest administration staff may perhaps keep component of their stakes under Barilla’s ownership.

Pasta Evangelists was set up minor far more than five several years back, and has constructed a faithful following of shoppers who acquire numerous types of pasta and sauces by their letterboxes on a membership basis.

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The firm’s shareholders also include Giles Coren, The Times’ restaurant critic, and William Sitwell, who now writes for The Everyday Telegraph adhering to a controversy sparked by remarks he created about vegans when editing Waitrose’s food stuff magazine.

James McArthur, a previous boss of Harrods, is Pasta Evangelists’ chairman.

Centered in London, it has raised a number of personal rounds of funding due to the fact start, like a £3.5m injection early last 12 months.

Barilla’s swoop on the British commence-up demonstrates a growing development for multinationals to scour the world for impressive start-ups to receive.

Aware Chef, a not dissimilar small business to Pasta Evangelists, was offered to Nestle late previous year for a similar sum.

The Italian group was started in 1877 by Pietro Barilla, when he opened a bread and pasta store in Parma.

It was then run by his sons Riccardo and Gualtiero, and in the 1950s and 1960s by Riccardo’s sons Gianni and Pietro.

In the 1970s Barilla turned aspect of the WR Grace Team, ahead of returning to the Barilla family’s palms in 1979.

Barilla owns renowned pasta manufacturing brand names these kinds of as Voiello and Academia Barilla, as nicely as bakery merchandise these kinds of as Pavesi, a range of dry treats Gran Cereale, a healthy snack label and Pan Stelle, which produces biscuits and chocolate snacks.

Pasta Evangelists did not reply to a request for remark.