Krystal De Pasquale co-owns the company with her father and in collaboration with her sisters.
The brand’s name is a nod to Antonio De Pasquale, who migrated to Australia from the Calabrian town of Varapodio as a boy in the early 1950s.
Like many migrants before and after him, he worked his way through various sectors before finding his calling and spending 60 years in the pasta industry.
Often – in fact almost always – behind a man’s success is a woman; in this case, it is Carolina, also originally from Calabria, whom Antonio married in the 1970s.
Carolina and Antonio had five daughters, who all grew into strong and independent women and came to share their father’s two greatest passions: family and pasta.
“Family is at the heart of our home and pasta is what brings us together,” a statement on the company’s website reads.
“We may not always have it all together, but when we’re together we have it all.”
Carolina and Antonio’s daughters grew up helping out with the family business during the school holidays, assisting their father with deliveries and sharing his love of pasta.
As the Italian saying goes, they have long had le mani in pasta (literally, their hands in the dough, or a finger in the pie).
Having built his successful business from the ground up, Antonio retired at the age of 80.
But as an active man who had dedicated his life to pasta, he couldn’t give it all up completely.
In 2020, his daughter Krystal entered the scene: studying to become a doctor but having spent a childhood donning an apron stained with flour and embracing Italian cuisine, she proposed to her father the establishment of a new company: Il Nonno Foods.
“For more than 60 years of pasta-making, it used to be the men in the family who led the charge, but now it’s the girls’ turn to run the business,”Krystal said in an interview with Rete Italia.
As we have discovered in previous episodes of ‘Sapori: Viaggio nel gusto’, some of the best business ideas have been a product of Melbourne’s ongoing lockdowns due to the coronavirus pandemic, and Il Nonno Foods is no exception.
“We were meant to open in early 2020, but unfortunately there were delays with machinery our engineers had to come from Italy to install the machines; there were a few delays so we had to open in April, right when COVID-19 started to take shape,” Krystal explained.
Il Nonno Foods produces premium quality pasta made with love, using the trusted traditional Italian techniques but with a focus on wholly natural Australian ingredients, including Australian durum wheat semolina, free range eggs, RSPCA approved chicken and premium Australian beef.
The products are new recipes developed by Krystal, drawing on the traditions she was raised on and her background in medicine, with the same ingredients that would be used at home.
The varieties currently available are mezzelune, ravioli, tortellini with various fillings and handmade gnocchi.
With machinery on its way from Italy, new varieties of dried and fresh pasta, as well as napoletana and arrabbiata sauces, will also be available soon.
“Pasta is definitely something we love to share and eat together and it really does bring people together,” Krystal said.
“There’s nothing nicer than having a beautiful meal with your family and pasta is always something that’s delicious and that everybody loves.”
