“It was limited to 2kg per person, which is not enough for a business,” he recalls.
Rather than panic, however, the innovative chef started to experiment with different flours, including tapioca, maize and rice.
“After two days, the magic began – the pasta started to come out from the machine perfectly, with a nice texture and flavour, too,” he says.
Once he had this magic formula, Edoardo began adapting the flour combination to suit each pasta. The gnocchi mix is different from the tagliatelle, for example, which differs from filled pasta, and so on.
Winning combination
While this was a labour-intensive process involving a lot of trial and error, it has been worth the effort. What started in 2019 with an arancini ball has grown into the state’s first 100 percent certified gluten-free pasta factory – and one of the largest gluten-free factories in Australia.
“Six years ago, I was rolling arancini and gnocchi on my couch and now we sell everywhere in Australia,” Edoardo says. “We just started some products in Coles, for all Western Australia, so we have grown a lot.”
The Italian-born chef, who immigrated to Australian in 2011, first started tinkering with gluten-free cooking while he was working with the Italian rugby team.
“One of the players was coeliac, so I started to develop some gluten-free recipes back then,” he says. “I was just a teenager, so I was learning from the executive chef.”
Now, Edoardo makes more than 50 products, including vegan-friendly options, for coeliacs and gluten-intolerant people like himself with his team at The Gluten Free Lab in Osborne Park. And they are being snapped up on supermarket and grocery shelves around the country. Covid had a hand there, too.
“We supply a lot to restaurants and that was my main business before Covid,” Edoardo says. “When all the restaurants start to shut down, we got demand from IGAs and from shops here and there.”
This was partly due to supply chains from Italy drying up. “There was a huge demand for fresh pasta, and we started with a small packing machine,” Edoardo says. “From that moment we start to supply all the IGAs, they never come off the shelf because people love it.”
Building a caring team
Edoardo is looking forward to introducing new buyers to The Gluten Free Lab range at Meet the Buyer in October.
“I was going to go last year but my application was a bit late,” he says. “This year, they contacted me to say they had a spot for me – I think it is going to be a very busy day!”
The Italian-born chef, who immigrated to Australia in 2011, reckons he has been very lucky. Friend Frank Noto invested in the business early on, taking care of logistics, while William Gottardi brought similar passion – and love for good food – when he became the third partner, handling production.
Like all small businesses, though, there is a lot more hard work that goes into making the magic happen than there is luck. Edoardo believes one of the reasons for their success is the team that has grown together with the lab.
“We have 23 employees but we are really part of a famiglia (family). We all know each other, we all had some connection before,” he says. “My accountant said ‘Edoardo, this is one of the few factories you know that never change employees’.”
This Perth ‘famiglia’ might never have happened without a nudge from a Kiwi Edoardo met in Italy during a friendly game between the All Blacks and the Italian rugby team.
“He told me ‘you are a good chef, you are young, you should go to Australia, because you will have a better life’,” he says. “So I follow his advice. I didn’t regret at all. Australia probably is the best place in the world that I ever been; I really love this place.”
Gluten-intolerant pasta lovers would be very glad to hear that, too.
Meet the Buyer™ is at Crown Perth on Tuesday 21 October. The exhibition floor has sold out, but chefs (and other buyers such as retail outlets and sommeliers) can still book tickets to the trade show.
Note: Meet the Buyer™ is a trade and industry event only but you can support local by supporting the businesses mentioned and looking out for local produce wherever you shop.