Pasta Is Trending: Here's How The Billionaire Barilla Family Heirs Are Taking Advantage

Recipes for everything from spaghetti pie to mac 'n' cheese bites are trending - so much so that Google declared "pasta is back." In fact, after four years of little interest in searching for pasta, people are googling the term much more frequently. Searches for everything from recipes for pasta bolognese to the differences between pasta shapes are up. Rigatoni, for one, was searched 26% more from January 2015 to 2016, according to Google's 2016 Food Trends Report. As the report notes: "It’s time for marketers to refocus their attention on pasta. There’s growing interest for a variety of pasta recipes, and consumers are seeking new ideas for their weekend eating adventures."

That spells good news for Barilla, the largest pasta company in the world with $3.5 billion in sales, and its four billionaire heirs, siblings Guido, Paolo, Luca and Emanuella who equally split 85% ownership of the subsidiary that makes Barilla-brand pasta. Guido Barilla is the company's longtime CEO, while brothers Paolo and Luca have helped him run the firm for decades. Each has an estimated $1.5 billion fortune.

Barilla Americas President Jean-Pierre Comte says his division is planning to take advantage of increased interest with new products like Barilla's protein-plus option and its Pronto line, which can be cooked alongside sauce in one pan, with no boiling or draining necessary. His goal is to get pronto's 10-minute cook time down to 1 minute. Barilla also plans to increase quality with products across categories like whole grain, gluten-free, vegetable-based and organic. "The major product innovation will continue to grow in the areas of more nutrition, more convenience and more inspiration to cook," Comte told Forbes recently.

With 30% of the dry pasta market in the US and 10% of worldwide sales in an otherwise splintered and localized industry, Barilla thinks it is in a position to grow, particularly in niche areas. To increase market share, Barilla has been heavily investing in research and development, and recently spent $26.5 million to expand its Iowa pasta plant to include two gluten-free production lines. In the US, gluten-free makes up 2% of its volume sold. According to Euromonitor, global consumption of gluten free pasta grew 89% in the past five years and is projected to expand by 43% by 2020. Organic pasta sales have grown 53% since 2010 and Euromonitor is projecting 30% more by 2020.

"The main aim globally for manufacturers will be to get new customers on board, particularly in fast growing markets where people are still used to cooking with rice and noodles and do not know how to prepare pasta," says Euromonitor food analyst Jack Skelly, who says it’s still going to be tough for Barilla to significantly boost sales, given the fact that total past sales are up only 1% to 2% in the past five years. Skelly predicts companies will roll out more options like instant pasta solutions, which Barilla is investing in, and also meal kits with sauce, meat and cheese, which Barilla has launched in the US through deals on online platforms like Peapod.

On the marketing side, Barilla has been leading a comprehensive marketing campaign to tell you that eating pasta isn't as bad as the low-carb diet craze tells you. It was one of the lead funders (along with the Italian government and Pfizer's foundation) of two multi-year-long studies of Italian diets among 23,000 people. The results, released this week, have a simple takeaway: weight loss is associated with those who find 10% of their daily calories from pasta. (The financial backers say they have no role in the study itself.) The catch is that the study was done in the context of the Mediterranean Diet (think fish, olive oil, vegetables as the mainstays), which is already thought to be one of the healthiest lifestyles around. Barilla has also recently launched a Pinterest-esque "Passion For Pasta" vertical and a video series called "While The Water Boils" which features the likes of Bill Nye (the Science Guy) and celebrity stylist Rachel Zoe sharing their favorite pasta recipes.