Pasta factory opens for business

A new company is looking for customers for its new cooked pasta and noodles factory which is due to open in Nottingham this month.

Pasta Solutions was set up last October by Tim Johnson and Franco Concilio and has invested £750,000 on machinery for a 930m2start-up factory on a new 'food park' in Nottingham.

Pasta Solutions has also prepared for future expansion by buying land in nearby Sutton-in-Ashfield, for which it has planning permission for a 1,400m2factory.

The firm will have three production lines, for: short pasta, such as shells, for ready meal firms, sandwich bars, etc; filled pasta, such as ravioli, for sale to manufacturers; and noodles, typically for 'ready for wok' products or for noodle pots.

The Nottingham factory, which has pasta machinery from D2 Systems and oven equipment from DC Norris, will be able to cook about 1t of pasta an hour.

Johnson said that the firm will have an initial workforce of 12. Financing, which he termed "difficult", came from about half a dozen sources. His partner Concilio sold a pasta business, which was based in Loughborough, a couple of years ago.