San Francisco, CA
Popular SF restaurant to sell dried pasta at grocery stores
Well-liked San Francisco pasta restaurant Flour + Water is increasing its attain with a brand new retail firm: Flour + Water Meals, a line of dried pasta on the market at grocery shops throughout the Bay Space.
Containers of spaghetti, elbow macaroni, penne and campanelle can be out there at Northern California Entire Meals shops this month, as first reported by the San Francisco Chronicle (SFGATE and the San Francisco Chronicle are each owned by Hearst however function independently of each other). The containers may also be offered on the Flour + Water Pasta Store within the Mission District and on its web site.
“I simply went to the Entire Meals by my residence, which is the one within the Haight, and it’s on the shelf,” Flour + Water co-chef Ryan Pollnow instructed SFGATE on Thursday. “It virtually introduced me to tears.”
The thought to promote containers of dried pasta got here to Pollnow and co-chef Thomas McNaughton through the pandemic, once they mentioned they needed to reevaluate what was necessary to them.
“Our eating places are wholesome and busy, however in actuality, we’re solely touching a pair hundred individuals an evening,” McNaughton mentioned. “The creation of our first line of dried pastas is twofold: We wish to develop our hospitality attain additional, and we wish to affect how wheat is grown in America.”
Flour + Water’s new dried pasta retails for $5.99 a field, and a portion of proceeds assist regenerative farming nonprofit Zero Foodprint.
Every field of natural Flour + Water Meals pasta retails for $5.99, with 1% of proceeds going to regenerative farming nonprofit Zero Foodprint.
“We wished to not be this loopy high-end area of interest pasta,” McNaughton mentioned. “We wish to feed the individuals. … There’s a whole lot of actually low-cost pasta on the market, however we didn’t wish to be the $12-a-box guys. Mainly, we landed on $5.99 as a result of it’s as reasonably priced of a worth that we may put forth in all the provision and demand of every little thing it took to place it on the shelf.”
Whereas many low-cost dried pasta producers use Teflon-coated molds to make pasta, Flour + Water Meals opted to make use of bronze molds. This methodology creates extra textured, porous pasta that soaks up sauce higher. Every Flour + Water field additionally features a QR code resulting in recipes for the completely different pasta shapes, full with cooking movies.
Pollnow and McNaughton have their eyes on finally increasing Flour + Water Meals dried pasta past Northern California shops and introducing extra retail merchandise. For now, although, they mentioned they’re excited to see the way it does within the geographical space the place they’ve identify recognition.
“It’s emotional,” McNaughton mentioned. “I feel me and Ryan are so used to being cooks. Being in eating places, you’re used to instant outcomes or gratification. … We’re virtually two years into this. The entire course of has been so lengthy within the making, which makes it so loopy to recover from the end line.”