While hunger for pasta may be waning, brands are innovating to appeal to consumers’ shifting appetites
Pasta has long been at the heart of Italian cooking, but now it seems that Italian consumers are falling out of love with this traditional dish. New research from Mintel reveals that sales of pasta in Italy had a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of -2% between 2011 and 2015, with sales falling to 908,100 tonnes in 2016. It appears that health is the reason this national cuisine has fallen on hard times as, today, almost one quarter (23%) of Italians say they are limiting the amount of pasta in their diet for health reasons.
While Italians still consume the biggest volume of pasta per person globally, they are cutting back on this traditional staple. Mintel research finds that retail per capita consumption of pasta in Italy fell from 17.0 kg in 2011 to 15.2 kg in 2016. It seems their tastes are also changing. In 2015, just seven% of Italians said they consumed any gluten-free pasta, while 13% ate organic pasta and 36% ate whole wheat pasta. By 2016, one in three (33%) Italians said they had eaten gluten-free pasta, while 63% had used/eaten organic pasta. Meanwhile, 75% of Italians report eating/using whole wheat or whole grain pasta in 2016, with 30% doing so once a week or more.