Oct. 25 – It doesn’t matter if it’s spaghetti, penne, or rigatoni: Italian pasta continues to seduce people worldwide, to the point that in the first 7 months of 2012, exports have increased by 7.8%, for a total value of 1.062 million tons of pasta – more or less 13.275 billion different plates. The Association for Italian Pasta and Sweets (Aidepi) is particularly proud of the data, and was able to hold its head high at the latest World Pasta Day – an event reuniting producers, nutritionists, opinion journalists and media from around the globe. The International Pasta Organization (IPO), in cooperation with Oldways, organized a general meeting in Mexico City on the theme of “Pasta: Food of the Future” to discuss the key role that this food plays and will continue to play. “The efforts undertaken by IPO in recent years to spread the culture of pasta, to defend its value and promote its consumption – says Raffaello Ragaglini, IPO’s General Secretary – have started to payoff. This proves that pasta is an easy dish to prepare, and is very versatile at the same time.” The event that has celebrated the Italian food for 15 years around the world, values and highlights the internationalization of the product, thanks to the simplicity in the preparation (water and durum wheat).
