The story
Founded by Pietro Barilla sr. in 1877, in Parma.1
The company was founded in 1877 as a bakery shop in Parma, Italy, by Pietro Barilla Sr. The company expanded in 1908, and in 1910 Barilla inaugurated a new pasta factory equipped with a "continuous baking" oven.
After the death of Pietro Barilla Sr. in 1912, his sons Riccardo and Gualtiero took the reins of the family company, increasing the production and distribution of products, thanks to technological innovations which allowed the company to rapidly transform itself, over the course of the 1920s and 1930s, into the most important bread and pasta company in Emilia-Romagna.
In 1919, Gualtiero Barilla died, leaving his brother Riccardo at the helm of the company together with his wife Virginia.
In 1947, Riccardo also died and the management passed to his sons Pietro and Gianni, exponents of the third generation.
With the advent of the two Barilla brothers, the company experienced a phase of great development, and in 1952, the production of bread was suspended to concentrate solely on pasta. In those years, Barilla quickly transformed itself from a regional company to a company with a strong presence in northern Italy, thanks to the quality of the products, the balanced prices and its innovative capacity, such as the use of cardboard to pack pasta.
In 1960, Barilla became a joint-stock company, and in the following years it opened new factories, in Rubbiano, which marked Barilla's entry into the cracker and breadsticks sector, and in Pedrignano, just outside Parma.
The company remained in the hands of the Barilla family until 1971, when the American chemical company W. R. Grace acquired a controlling interest. However, Grace left day-to-day control in the hands of Pietro Barilla, grandson and namesake of the company founder. Pietro reacquired control in 1979, and the company has remained privately held ever since.
In 1993, Pietro Barilla died at the age of 80 and the management of the company passed to his children Guido, Luca, and Paolo. This led to the fourth Barilla generation, and throughout the nineties the company continued the internationalization process, which began at the beginning of the decade under the management of Pietro, opening in 1999 the first production plant in Iowa, in the United States.
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This expansion continued with the acquisition of various foreign companies in the food sector, such as the MISKO pasta company in Greece (1991), the Turkish pasta company Filiz Makarna (1994), the Swedish crispbread producer Wasabröd (1999), the joint venture with the Mexican Herdez in 2002 (pasta brands Yemina and Vesta). In 2002 Barilla took over the German company Kamps AG, which was then sold to the Czech Agrofert in 2013, except for the French soft bread company Harrys, which still belongs to the Barilla Group. In 2007 Barilla opened a second production plant in the United States, in Avon, New York.
At the beginning of 2021, Barilla finalized the acquisitions in Canada of the Catelli company (including Lancia) and, in the United Kingdom, of the majority stake in Pasta Evangelists, a London-based start-up for the production of fresh pasta for home delivery.
In December 2022, the Group also acquired Back To Nature, an American brand specialising in plant-based, non-GMO products.
From Wikipedia’s article on Barilla (company), shared under CC BY-SA 4.0.5