Barilla, originally established in 1877 as a bread and pasta shop in Parma, Italy, ranks as one of today’s top Italian food companies. Barilla leads in the world pasta business, the pasta sauces business in continental Europe, the bakery products business in Italy and the crispbread business in Scandinavia.

Barilla owns 30 production sites (14 in Italy and 16 outside Italy) and exports to more than 100 countries. Every year, about 1,800,000 tons of food products are featured on dining tables all over the world under the brands of Barilla, Mulino Bianco, Voiello, Pavesi, Academia Barilla, Wasa, Harrys (France), Misko (Greece), Filiz (Turkey), Yemina and Vesta (Mexico). For more information, please visit: www.barillagroup.com Barilla has been a leader in advancing healthful, innovative products for the retail and foodservice markets, including its Barilla ProteinPLUS Pasta (utilizing legume flour) and its 100% Whole Grain Pasta.

The Barilla Center for Food & Nutrition works to advance understanding and adoption of the healthy, Mediterranean Diet, whose value was recently highlighted by the 2015 U.S. Dietary Guidelines for Americans. The foundation conducts programs and initiatives that pair health imperatives with environmental imperatives as embodied in plant-forward diets and cooking styles.

Working with leading Italian food and nutrition researchers over the past four years, Barilla has been conducting a healthy, Mediterranean-diet–inspired intervention in its own employee foodservice operations in Italy and globally. This initiative has now impacted more than 7,000 Barilla employees and, together with its extensive R & D operations, demonstrates the depth of commitment Barilla has made to being a leader in health and environmentally friendly food choices, both for its employees and customers. The results of the first intervention in Italy was impressive in 2012: in six months we saw a significant increase in the consumption of wholegrain pasta (doubled) and bread (40% increase), legumes, and vegetarian entrees, with a decrease in amount of meat and salami eaten by employees. This initiative has been very challenging, as each Barilla site, whether a factory or office, has a different situation in terms of facilities, nutritional understanding, and cultural food and language diversity. The team has tailored the program and the key messages to the needs of the Barilla employees at each location.

On March 2016 the Si.Med program in Italy has been relaunched and redesigned as a full experience using the design thinking approach. This work has supported:

  • Creating new contents to stimulate curiosity and learning about food choices and environmental impact
  • Driving focus on real-time specific food choice selections
  • Providing counseling to employees to support them in their weight loss programs as well as helping them track their own physical activity.

The full experience includes:

  1. Recipes: a set of recipes, based on Barilla pasta products, developed within a collaborative framework across culinary experts and nutrition researchers from Italian academic institutions.
  2. Guidelines: Barilla’s double pyramid guidelines to design meals according to the Mediterranean style cuisine
  3. Communication toolkit: a set of MKTG materials to be tailored to different types of customers and service locations
  4. Toolchef: a software developed by nutrition researchers and sustainability experts, to calculate the nutritional and environmental impact for all Si.Mediterraneo recipes
  5. Tracking tool system: support integration of wearable devices to help track physical activity
  6. Personal Lifestyle coaching: a counseling service by a RD
  7. Teaching kitchen for employees: an NEW educational experienced based module that will be piloted in Parma by end of 2016

The outputs and findings will be consolidated in 2017 Thus, the Si. Med Program in its final version will be based on a platform of products and services that are in development through the 2016 pilot in Parma Barilla canteens.

Barilla teaching kitchens (1 in Chicago, IL and a bigger one in Parma (Academia Barilla), Italy) were created more than 10 years ago to educate clients, customers and consumers about both wholesome ingredients and the Mediterranean-style of cooking.