Elon Musk. Tim Cook. Sam Altman. If you list the names of the people who are creating the newest products and services that make a difference in our day-to-day lives, you might start with those. Certainly they're the ones who get the biggest headlines, along with Jeff Bezos and Jensen Huang and other tech gurus. Yet there are still more who work in fields that, while not always at the top of the page, have a big impact on each of us.
In medicine there's Noubar Afeyan who cofounded Moderna, the company whose MRNA vaccine helped get us through COVID and whose technology is seen as key to our future health. Or Thomas Sisto, whose XL Batteries is developing grid-scale, organic batteries that are said to be some of the lowest-cost, safest and most efficient form of long-duration energy storage. Then there's Katherine Sizov, whose company Strella is developing AI monitoring systems to reduce the 40% of food we produce that gets wasted before it gets consumed.
To be sure, all of these are important, cutting-edge discoveries that are and will make a difference in our world. But I would say that Guido, Luca and Paolo Barilla should also be added to that pantheon. They are the fourth generation to run their family-owned Italian food business, growing a company that their great-grandfather started from a single bakery in 1877. Today it's an international concern operating more than 30 plants in over 100 countries that produces 1.8 billion metric tons of products a year. That's a lot of pasta.
Their portfolio encompasses all manner of different pasta permutations: whole grain, gluten free, legume and chickpea based, ready-to-eat, as well as classic shapes and sauces. Not content to rest on their considerable history, and trying to keep up with modern marketing trends, they even released a heart shaped noodle for Valentines Day, as well as an updated wagon-wheel silhouette, now christened as "Racing Wheels" in a nod to its partnership with Formula 1.
But those are stupid pet tricks when compared to their most recent innovation. After all, unless you are five and just eat your rotini with butter and cheese, the reason that pasta exists is to be a carrier for the sauce, be it marinara or pesto, amatriciana or arribiata. And so the guys put their company's best minds to the task at BITE, the Barilla Innovation and Technology Experience center in Parma, Italy. And last week they released what in the tech world might be called Pasta 2.0, but which they call Al Bronzo Radiatori.
It starts with a traditional method for cutting the pasta shapes called Al Bronzo, which utilizes a bronze die. Most modern pastas are made using Teflon coated dies, which results in a smooth, shiny product. This method is cheaper to produce, and the resulting shapes, from spaghetti to rigatoni, look good in photographs. But those characteristics also make your farfalle slippery, and so the sauce slides off rather than sticking to it. Pastas made with bronze dies have a rougher surface texture and are a little more porous, meaning the sauce hangs on and even soaks into your penne.
Barilla already had a half dozen traditional formulations made this way, all manufactured in their Italian plants and imported to this country. But the folks at BITE thought they could go one better. And so they worked up the dies using this method to produce the Radiatori shape, so named because it looks like a radiator. It has a deep, five-winged design with ruffled edges, deep grooves and ridges, all designed to capture more sauce in every bite. After trying Barilla’s Al Bronzo pasta, chef and partner Manuel Gregorio of Brooklyn's Tutt'Appost, said "For home, it's amazing."
To be fair, at a time when Elon is going public with a company whose stated aim it is to take us to Mars, the introduction of a new pasta shape might be a little less consequential. Still, while there may be a red planet in my distant future, there's a red sauce in my dinner plans this week. And so while any kudos to Mr. Musk might come later, my grazie mille to Guido and his brothers comes now. For if there is a way of getting more Bolognese into my mouth with every bite, well, you can keep your IPO and I'll invest in a box of Radiatori. Mangia!
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Marc Wollin of Bedford loves pasta in every form. His column appears weekly via email and online on Substack and Blogspot as well as Facebook, LinkedIn and X.
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