“Make Pasta, Not War” - The Story Behind One RI Company’s Ukraine Fundraiser

“Make Pasta, Not War” - The Story Behind One RI Company’s Ukraine Fundraiser

One Rhode Island small business — focused on making gluten-free pasta — wants to help feed those impacted by the Russian aggression in Ukraine. 

“Make Pasta, Not War” is the slogan of fundraising merchandise being produced by GF-Pasta, a growing Woonsocket-based specialty foods company. 

“We’re donating 100% of the net profits to the World Central Kitchen — they’re actively operating on the ground at numerous border crossing locations,” said company founder Steven D’Andrea. 

GET THE LATEST BREAKING NEWS HERE -- SIGN UP FOR GOLOCAL FREE DAILY EBLAST

D’Andrea spoke with GoLocal about starting the company because he missed “really good pasta,” how it is now growing regionally — and nationally, and how it was his wife, Jess, who was the originator of the fundraiser. 

 

Local Focus and World View

“Ten years ago, the gluten-free market wasn’t anywhere near what it is today,” said D’Andrea, who said he’d “dabbled” in gluten-free, dairy-free, and paleo diets for health reasons, but there was one thing missing.

Really good gluten-free pasta. 

“So I started making my own and it segued into what is now,” said D’Andrea. 

D’Andrea, who grew up in Smithfield in a family who ran small businesses, joked that he knew at the beginning that even though he thought the product was “really good, it wasn’t my opinion that mattered.”

So D’Andrea started a landing page to gauge interest and ran online ads, and the response was huge. 

“The ads were converting at about at 50% rate,” said D’Andrea of the overwhelming response. The company launched Thanksgiving weekend of 2020, right in the midst of the coronavirus pandemic. 

“I think that actually helped us because everyone was home, so the food-delivery model was a boon,” said D’Andrea. 

The gluten-free pasta line currently features products, from spaghetti and mac-and-cheese, to pappardelle and lumache — and D’Andrea says he has fulfilled orders from as far away as Alaska. 

“I think they probably paid more in shipping than for the products themselves,” said D’Andrea. “I spent a summer in Alaska when I was 14 with my grandfather, so that tie-in was actually pretty cool.”

And it was D’Andrea’s family ties that helped launch the Ukraine fundraiser. 

“My grandfather was instrumental in my going to Norwich University,” said D’Andrea of attending the oldest private military college in the country in Vermont. “The philosophy there is service to the community.”

D’Andrea said his wife had actually come up merchandising “Make Pasta, Not War” over a year ago, and with the current conflict in Ukraine, making the blue-and-yellow tees and sweatshirts as a fundraiser was a natural fit. 

Meanwhile, the company continues to grow at the Millrace Kitchen in Woonsocket, and D’Andrea hopes to have an even greater local impact. 

“Our goal is the saturate the New England market,” he said.