A Bite Of Italy, From The Heart of Cirencester
The UK’s food scene is becoming increasingly diverse and multicultural; as the fusion of different cuisines enters into all aspects of the landscape, it’s a brilliant time to be hungry. So what’s our go-to street food at the moment? Non Solo Pasta’s arancini balls! We spoke to co-founder Clara to learn the tips, tricks, and tribulations of setting up a successful street food business!
What is Non Solo Pasta?
We’re a young business focusing on traditional Italian street-food, bringing authentic Italian flavours directly to you! Every dish is freshly homemade and unique with a special creation for every event. Our best sellers are Arancini, Frittatine di Pasta, Pizza, Lasagne, Tiramisù, Italian Biscotti and many more!
Where did the idea for Non Solo come from?
My partner Matteo used to be an Italian chef; his career, as well as his upbringing, has instilled in him a true love and passion for food. We’re now based in Cirencester, but when his mum came over to visit, she brought us the arancini shape. It was delicious, unlike anything we have here in the UK, and immediately we knew we’d found a street food business we could (quite literally!) sink our teeth into!
So what is arancini?
Arancini are stuffed rice balls which are coated with bread crumbs and then deep fried; we fill ours with all sorts of ingredients, from pesto and mozarella, to cheese and marmite!
What was the first day of selling street food like?
Our first day was a little out of the ordinary…we had someone from the Growth Hub came up to us and prompted us to go and present our business. This led us to get to know a supportive and lovely community who were willing to help us, and our manager Peter Brown. It’s certainly been challenging, but soon we’re hoping to scale up out of our kitchen!
If you could tell your past-self one thing, looking back, what would it be? What advice would you give to someone starting out in the food industry?
Everyone needs to dream big — if you do, a lot of positive things will come to you! I’d also say that starting on a small scale, offering just a few really good products, is key. If you make few things of a high quality, that’s far more beneficial than only pouring half as much effort into products you’re not proud of.
What’s something you’re most proud of when it comes to the product you deliver?
Everything! We have a little girl, and three days after she was born, we started the business; juggling home and work life has been a struggle, and this whole year has just been such a busy whirlwind, but every milestone is a moment of pride for us.
If you’d like to see what connections Forward Fooding could offer your start-up, feel free to get in touch with us at info@forwardfooding.com! You can also add your company to our FMCG trends section on our platform to get free visibility within our corporate and investors’ network here.
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