Pasta Fit: devising the expansion strategy for a new healthy Italian food product line

Published by SprintMaster.co on behalf of the sprint master Renato Endo

Promoting the idea that pasta with no gluten can have lots of flavors

Pasta Sugo is a family deli & restaurant that has been selling traditional Italian food in São Paulo’s Vila Mariana neighborhood for 15 years. They never really intended to expand the business, and favored the close family-like relationships they have built with their customers instead.

An entrepreneur’s test kitchen

One of the sons, Raffaele Pascale, had always been avid about creating new recipes and testing different pastas. After observing the tendency of people pursuing healthier lifestyles, he discovered the opportunity to create a new line of gluten free products.

Our challenge was to help him structure a new business expansion strategy that was scalable and capable of reaching more people instead of staying confined to the deli.

Gluten: the bad guy of the month

First eggs, then meat, then milk. Now, gluten was the villain of nutrition.

To start the project, we researched myths and truths about gluten and immersed ourselves in people’s lives to understand their relationship with food.

We looked for people with many divergent perspectives, and interviewed people with food allergies, people who are extremely worried about their bodies and health, and even some fast food addicts.

In this context, we discovered different behaviors: those who eat seven small meals per day, those who read all the nutritional facts before buying products, and of course those who are driven by convenience. All this information was brought together to co-create options for a new healthy product line with potential clients, without considering Pasta Sugo’s main characteristics: a family friendly atmosphere with delicious, artisanal food.

A new brand is released

Throughout the process, we realized that the new line should be disconnected from the Pasta Sugo brand because it proposes something very different to customers. As a result, we created directives for a new brand, from packaging to the prototype of the brand’s new website.

We called the new brand Past Fit, with the slogan “No gluten, lots of flavor!” to debunk the myth that healthy or gluten free foods don’t have flavor. In addition, we tried to show that the food is prepared by hand with the same care that Pasta Sugo products are, connecting to the family-like relationships the restaurant is built upon.

In the end, we prioritized solutions created together with Raffaele so that he could organize and implement them, taking into consideration his financial and time constraints.

“The sprint helped me organize ideas that I had already thought about, with things that I would never have imagined. The team was incredible.”

Raffaele Pascale, owner of Pasta Fit

Insights

• People with Celiac disease or gluten allergies need to be able to trust that the product really doesn’t have any traces of gluten.
• Raffaele loves inventing new pastas, and consequently the brand must incorporate this drive into its essence.
• The stereotype that healthy food lacks flavor is rampant.