Pastai Gragnanesi

Pastai Gragnanesi is a cooperative of pasta makers in Gragnano, the town near Naples in Campania known for dry pasta. According to the cooperative, it was founded in 1980 by a group of young people, sons and descendants of pasta workers of Gragnano, who wanted to carry on their fathers' trade. It is a member of the Pasta di Gragnano consortium and describes itself today as a reference point for the production of Pasta di Gragnano PGI.

The factory is unusual: it is built vertically, over several floors, like the old pasta buildings of Gragnano, rather than as a modern horizontal line. The cooperative says this keeps traditional manual steps and the old division of roles – kneader, cutter, dryer and packer. Around 1987 it began making common shapes such as spaghetti, linguine, penne and fusilloni alongside special formats, and recovered old shapes such as paccheri and mista lunga after historical research, using dies with bronze inserts. The plant was fully renovated between 2008 and 2011, and a later investment added an automated packing line for short pasta.

The product list is grouped into Pasta Lunga, Pasta Corta and Pasta da Forno (cannelloni, lasagne, large shells), plus a few laminated shapes and pasta nests. Product pages give cooking times, for example 10 minutes for spaghetti. As Pasta di Gragnano, the pasta is dry durum wheat pasta made from semolina and water.