Building on its success in the UK, Garofalo UK joined its Italian parent company in Turin for the internationally renowned Salone del Gusto food festival in October. This year Garofalo Pasta was a main sponsor of the event, capitalising on its innovative marketing in the Italian home market where is it enjoying increasing recognition as the premium pasta brand.
A relative newcomer to the UK pasta market, Garofalo is enjoying strong growth in sales via Ocado thanks to an increasingly loyal following as more consumers recognise its superior quality.
As part of its drive to grow awareness and sales in the UK, Garofalo invited the UK’s top food blogger, Julia Parsons, whose blog, A Slice of Cherry Pie, has achieved worldwide recognition and is the first in the UK to go from blog to book, to join them at the Salone event. Julia cooked a pasta recipe from her first cookery book, in front of an invited audience at the Garofalo pavilion, and was amongst a handful of the world’s top food bloggers taking part in the first bloggers cookery event to be held by the company.
Mal Pullan, Commercial Director of Garofalo in the UK believes that working with social media and developing relationships with key bloggers is already paying dividends for his brand: “Our colleagues in Italy have been working with their blogging community for some time now as well as developing their facebook presence, and have seen real success growing out of regular and meaningful conversations with their customers. We decided to start applying the same approach in the UK and are beginning to see the fruits of our efforts. UK customers are visiting the Italian website and facebook in increasing numbers and we are hard at work to make our social media presence here work as well as it does in Italy.”
Garofalo has seen a surge in interest in its brand following the Turin event according to Mal: “The response from the UK consumer has been fantastic, people are really keen to get hold of Garofalo. We’re looking forward to a positive 2011, not only with the launch of our children’s range of pasta, but also extending the Signature range available to the UK consumer.”
Julia Parsons and A Slice of Cherry Pie:
Julia Parsons has gone from occasional recipe blogger to a critically acclaimed food blogger and founder of the UK Food Blogger’s Association. Her blog and recipes have been featured in several newspapers and periodicals, and A Slice of Cherry Pie has been named as one of the world’s best food blogs by The Times.
A debut book from one of the country’s finest food bloggers
With the internationally acclaimed successes of blog to book to big screen of Julie and Julia, and, before that, Clotilde Dusoulier‘s Chocolate and Zucchini (the original food blog to be published as an international best seller), comes A Slice of Cherry Pie, the first major food blog to book from this side of the Atlantic. It’s a faithful reworking of all the elements of a blog which have brought Julia a large and loyal following.
Her writing interweaves food with beautifully composed evocations of the places, people and memories which inform her recipe creations: a mix of modern rustic dishes inspired and inflected by a love of eating and sharing. A stunning backdrop of arresting food photography from Cristian Barnett and assemblies of text montages, family snapshots and the author’s own photographs provide a perfectly balanced visual echo to an assured and passionate voice.
A book which promises to be the first of many from a gifted new food writer, eagerly awaited by thousands of followers all over the world.
A Slice of Cherry Pie by Julia Parsons, with photographs by Cristian Barnett, is published by Absolute Press on 18th November, price: £16.99.
Garofalo UK
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