CBIA BizCast: ‘Joy on a Fork’ (Part 1)

Carl Zuanelli knows his pasta. As founder and CEO of Nuovo Pasta Productions, Ltd, Zuanelli has been making fresh pasta for 35 years. 

“I refer to pasta as joy on a fork,” Zuanelli told the CBIA BizCast in the first of a two-part conversation.

“I’ve never seen anyone eat pasta and not be enjoying it. It brings a smile to their face.”

Since Zuanelli started the company in 1989, Nuovo Pasta has become a leading national producer of premium refrigerated pasta and sauce.

“We make things like ravioli and tortellini and long cut pastas, like fettuccine, or linguini, tagliatelle,” he said. “We also make gnocchi and sauces.”

Finance to Food

But Zuanelli’s career journey didn’t start with pasta.

“I was in the financial services world,” he said. 

After college, Zuanelli worked for Citbank and Merrill Lynch.

But he said that, even as a child, he knew he wanted to have his own business. 

“There was this thing inside of me that just said that I wanted to have my own business.”

Nuovo Pasta’s Carl Zuanelli

“There was this thing inside of me that just said that I wanted to have my own business,” he said. 

And while that dream wasn’t to own a pasta company, the classic Italian food was always part of his life.

“I grew up in a home that had an Italian culture in it, because my grandparents lived in the home with us,” Zuanelli said.  

“They had brought a lot of culture from the old country, including the food and how the food was prepared.”

Entrepreneurial Spirit

So amid market turmoil in 1987, he decided to exercise his entrepreneurial spirit.

While doing research on recession resistant items, he discovered a boom in pasta consumption and an emerging market for refrigerated pasta. 

“I had actually put together a business plan at that time,” Zuanelli said. “And I presented it to investors.”

“I had actually no experience except eating pasta.”

Zuanelli

“I had clearly outlined the per capita consumption trend that was taking place in the U.S., and laid out what the refrigerated pasta category looked like.”

Zuanelli only had one problem.

“I had actually no experience except eating pasta,” he said.

Gaining Experience

That experience came from a chance encounter, after a night out for Zuanelli’s parents.

He said his mother told him, “your father and I just had a magnificent meal at a restaurant called Pasta Nostra in South Norwalk. You should just go down and check it out and see what it’s all about.”

So on a Tuesday morning, he stopped at the restaurant and got the attention of the chef making pasta in the window. 

“He said, ‘if you’re willing to cook with me at night, I’ll teach you how to make fresh pasta.’”

Zuanelli

“I told him that I was interested in learning how to make pasta,” Zuanelli said. 

“He said, ‘if you’re willing to cook with me at night, I’ll teach you how to make fresh pasta.’

“I said, ‘you got a deal.’ And I went back to Merrill, and that week, I gave them my notice.”

For the next year and a half, Zuanelli worked at the restaurant, learning how to make different types of specialty fresh pasta. 

No Looking Back

In 1989, he started Nuovo Pasta, and said he’s never looked back. 

“Some people say, ‘you know, you should have something to fall back on. If you’re going to start a business you should have something to fall back on,’” he said.

“My advice is have no fallback position. Because if it’s something that you’re passionate about, you have to burn the bridges behind you.”

“My advice is have no fallback position.”

Zuanelli

Today, the company has more than 300 employees in four facilities in Stratford, including two state-of-the-art pasta manufacturing facilities.

They also have a facility in Cleveland, Ohio where they make long cut pastas and sauces. 

While he says his passion and commitment to excellence plays a role in his success, Zuanelli said the company’s most valuable asset is the people.

“A company is a group of people that come together to work towards an outcome,” he said. “Could be a theater company, right. Or it could be a pasta manufacturing company.”

“I think it’s a commitment to the quality of a product and the respect for the people that use their talents and their skills every day.”

In part two of the discussion, Zuanelli will share some of the darkest moments of his career, and how he turned them around. 

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