Regional Food /
Driven by a desire to deliver New Zealanders delicious, fresh pasta using only quality, locally sourced ingredients, Christchurchbased Pasta Vera has gone from humble beginnings to a household name in 20 years.
From humble beginnings to household name, meet the duo behind Pasta Vera
HAVING MET AND FALLEN FOR EACH OTHER IN
London, husband and wife team Phil Bennett and Linda Murphy travelled extensively before finally returning home to New Zealand with dreams of one day starting their own business.
A baker by trade, Phil was itching to get back into the food industry and by chance stumbled across a fledgling pasta-making company for sale. ‘It was a bit of a leap of faith, but we saw it as a huge opportunity as at the time there were few people producing pasta,’ he says.
Phil set to work, pouring his blood, sweat and tears into the newly-branded Pasta Vera, focused on producing premium fresh pasta for the food service sector. It was a pretty basic setup in the beginning. He made everything from scratch using his own recipes, sourcing quality, locally grown produce where he could. The old pasta machine was imported from Italy. It was a labour of love with everything hand-folded.
‘At the start I was doing absolutely everything myself – writing labels, hand-making pasta and working in the retail shop. As soon as I could get away from the pasta machines I would get on the phone to restaurants and distributors. I spent years knocking on doors.’
The first few years of the business were tough. Sales were slow, but eventually the hard work started to pay off. Their first big break came when they got a contract to supply hand-made baked lasagne for the local ski fields. ‘I am a skier. I was sick of the limited food available on the mountain, so I approached them about making lasagne for them,’ explains Phil.
He enjoyed being hands-on, working directly with some of the country’s leading chefs to deliver authentic dishes that their customers loved. Their small size gave them significant flexibility. Chefs would often come to Phil with their own ideas and vice versa. ‘Sometimes they thought they [my ideas] were great, or that I was mad. More often than not we decided we just needed to do it.’
Though their business was primarily focused on hospitality, Phil and Linda were always looking for other avenues to enhance sales. In the early years, Linda’s father peddled Pasta Vera products at the Christchurch Farmers’ Market on the weekends. ‘It helped to get our name out there,’ explains Linda.
Once their children hit primary school they also saw an opportunity to drive sales while helping raise much-needed funds for schools and sports teams, developing a popular automated online fundraising platform which remains a key part of their business even now. Schools get a healthy 20 per cent of all sales.
From those rather small beginnings, Pasta Vera eventually outgrew its original premises in Sockburn. ‘The first 10 years the business was quite small,’ says Phil. ‘We started with just one unit and ended up with five. It got to the point where we had to move if we were to take it to the next level.’
Five years ago they bought land on Wigram Road. In the space of 12 months a new purpose-built, 1000-square-metre
facility had been built, complete with on-site factory shop – twice as big as their old factory.
Since the move, business has grown exponentially. Phil and Linda now employ 24 staff, and Pasta Vera makes around 140 different products. The business has a much more strategic focus nowadays. Additional growth has afforded them the opportunity to step back from the day-to-day operations, though both are still actively involved in the company. Linda is in charge of systems and productivity, while Phil remains central to recipe and product development.
‘We never intended to get this big,’ says Linda. ‘But as the business grew we’ve employed more staff with complementary skills. It’s added another layer of management, and more brainpower, and with that comes more ideas. Our business is continually changing. We have all the structures in place, and the staff, and the capabilities to continue to grow.’
But when the COVID-19 enforced lockdown threatened to unravel much of their growth seemingly overnight as the hospitality industry went into hibernation, Phil and Linda were forced to rethink their business model.
During the Christchurch earthquake the business escaped almost unscathed because the factory was unaffected and it sold nationwide, but this time it wasn’t so lucky. ‘While the business had been able to grow really well on the back of the food service industry, COVID-19 and lockdown served as a good reminder that having all your eggs in one business carries an element of risk,’ says Phil.
‘We have amazing staff and we didn’t want to make a single person redundant. We couldn’t reduce the size of the business,’ adds Linda.
Over lockdown, Pasta Vera proved an extremely popular online delivery option with the company frequently fielding questions about cooking instructions and recipes. This led to the creation of a new retail range, vegan options and even a collaboration with celebrated local celebrity chef Jax Hamilton, to create mouth-watering high-quality gourmet dishes anyone can make at home in under 10 minutes.
To tempt the tastebuds of your home cook, new products including Manuka smoked salmon tortellini; mushroom,
Over lockdown, Pasta Vera proved an extremely popular online delivery option with the company frequently fielding questions about cooking instructions and recipes.
walnut and feta ravioloni; and vegan pumpkin, ricotta and hemp ravioli were added, along with fresh ribbon-cut pasta.
Today, Pasta Vera supplies supermarkets, restaurants, hotels and meal-kit delivery services nationwide with its pestos, sauces and pasta products, including fresh ribbon-cut pasta, cannelloni, gnocchi, gourmet filled pasta and handbaked lasagne. It also has developed a delicious range of vegan and gluten-free products. ‘It [the business] has come a long way since I used to make pesto with a stick blender in a pot,’ smiles Phil.
While a lot else has changed over the past two decades, Pasta Vera’s quest to produce a premium, high-quality product hasn’t wavered. Every product is still made from scratch using Phil’s own recipes, utilising only the best, locally sourced, fresh ingredients just as you would at home – just on a much larger scale. And although the process has become more automated with the importation of specialist pasta-making equipment from Italy, much is still lovingly created by hand.
Phil and Linda are also committed to working with other local producers as much as they can. Their new Manuka smoked salmon tortellini, for example, uses salmon from the Bates family’s Akaroa Salmon, while they use locally grown hemp from The Brothers Green.
Despite recent growth, the importance of their customers is not lost on Phil. ‘You’ve got to value your customers and look after them. In those early days we were so grateful to get any order. It didn’t matter how hard you had to work to get it out. That first winter there were some days where no orders came in, which is why we don’t take it for granted now.’
He loves getting customer feedback, good and bad.
While the move into supermarkets has added complexity to their business, Linda says the response has been overwhelmingly positive.
Looking ahead, Phil’s not sure what’s next for the company but rest assured, with around 140 products already on the market, he’s got no shortage of new product ideas up his sleeve.
Every product is still made from scratch using Phil’s own recipes, utilising only the best, locally sourced, fresh ingredients just as you would at home.