However, you will notice a drop in prices if you've been ordering online. Since the scale of Colavita's shipping/manufacturing is much bigger than what we could pull off by ourselves, it means we've been able to cut our packing costs and even the prices of some of our products. You'll notice that our gift baskets, for example, cost significantly less than they did last year, even though every gift basket was packed with more stuff! On top of that, you can now order pasta and sauce in specific amounts, even individually! So you won't have to worry about building your holiday gifts around 3-pack or 6-pack sauce options.
Colavita's a great partner for us in many ways - We even share a common background! Much like us, they began their operations a long time ago. For them, business started in Italy, and it was also family run. One branch of the Colavita family owned a stone mill, which they used to crush their own olives and create olive oil. The other branch gathered wheat, milled it, and turned it into fresh pasta.
Inadvertently, these simple processes were refined and eventually mastered, and the older generation of Colavita would pass everything they'd learned onto their kin. In time, Colavita became a name synonymous with time-honored tradition and proven quality.
Unlike Patsy's, it took Colavita until 1978 to make their way to America. The family agreed to partner with John Profaci (a good friend of ours, and our liason with Colavita!), who saw an opportunity for Colavita's olive oil to find its way into the homes of Americans.
Initially, Profaci faced a tough challenge - there was a perception that the particular kind of olive oil Colavita produced (the extra virgin olive oil that they artfully created for hundreds of years) was too green, dark and intense to be used with food. Realizing that people wouldn't buy something that they didn't trust, Profaci launched a marketing campaign that sought to inform people about the virtues of Colavita's mainstay product.
On top of this, a wealth of positive health benefits were discovered regarding olive oil. It's actually really cool, the health benefits are enormous. I won't list them all here, it'd make this blog post way too massive, but off the top of my head, I know olive oil lowers cholesterol, helps you fight heart disease, can be instrumental in weight loss if you replace other oils with olive oil.... In fact, check out this link if you're interested. (We're not even connected with that website, I just googled that now!)
Anyway, the combination of health benefits and Profaci's positive marketing campaign had a notable impact on Americans - research showed that over 10% of homes now routinely purchased olive oil, which was a significant improvement! Once Colavita's olive oil caught on, the pasta and other products followed suite.
Much like the original branch of Colavita, Profaci's efforts in America are also family run. He, along with his four sons, have ensured that Colavita's products made the transition to America without sacrificing any of the quality, integrity or taste that made them famous in Italy.
And these are the guys we've partnered with! Pretty good, huh? We're very excited about what this means for Patsy's. As I said above, since they're handling our shipping and manufacturing now, you'll already begin to see some of the benefits of this partnership, but there's definitely more in store for all of us. And don't worry - the great taste that you've come to love from Patsy's hasn't been changed, not a bit!
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