They got here by taking very different approaches to working out the fundamentals of heat, mass and momentum transfer principles.

Rigatoni. Lasagna. Ziti. Bucatini. Rotelle. At 28 kg per person per year, Italians love their pasta, and continue to reign as today's big spenders. But the rest of the world is aggressively playing catch-up. World production nearly doubled between 1998 and 2006, from 6.4 to 11.7 million tons. Last year, dozens of high-capacity, dry pasta equipment lines were installed around the globe in countries as diverse as Hungary, South Africa, Saudi Arabia and Guatemala. These lines run 24 hours a day for weeks on end, without interruption.

Given that pasta is practically in the DNA of Italians, it may come as a surprise that two Italian companies, FAVA SpA and Pavan Group, own two-thirds of this rapidly expanding, $270 million global market. In fact, they are practically next-door neighbors in a region of northern Italy with a long history and high concentration of specialized equipment manufacturers for specific industries - from pasta to packaging.

The fascinating part of the story is how these two companies, both founded before 1950, came to dominate the market through the novel application of basic engineering principles and the ability to evolve and change to meet the demands of an industry in transition. Keep in mind that just 30 years ago, there were 1,000 pasta producers in Italy. That number has shrunk by an order of magnitude to just 100 companies today. This consolidation has led to increasing demand for larger plants with higher capacities and equipment with shorter cycle times and higher throughput.Meanwhile, the end product must meet customers' high expectations.

From small batch to large

Over the past 70 years, the process of making pasta has evolved dramatically - from small artisanal batches of fresh cooked pasta to today's high-tech, high-performance machines designed to pump from 500 to 6,000 kg/h for long and short cut pasta.

"It is a convenience food that is cheap, easy to store and easy to prepare," says Luigi Fava, managing director and CEO of FAVA SpA, describing the reasons behind the growing market demand for dry pasta. A third-generation Fava involved in the family-owned company, founded in 1937 and having sold more than 2,250 lines of pasta products, as he is, he is excited about the future. "Out of almost 7 billion people in the world, less than a billion eat pasta today. In a way you could call it a new food," he enthuses.

At 64 years old, Italy's main competitor Fava, Pavan Group, presents itself as "the youngest" of the three main competitors (the third is a Swiss company). Dr. Luca Zocca, Pavan's corporate marketing manager, is no less optimistic about the future. Pasta has considerable potential in large countries like the U.S., where current per capita consumption is only 10 kg per person per year," he says .He notes that the Atkins diet, legendary for shunning carbohydrates, "almost crippled" the U.S. market five years ago. But sales are bouncing back strongly, enough so that Barilla recently opened a plant here with a capacity of 60,000 tons.

The goal of a dry pasta machine is to produce a final product with a moisture content of 12 percent, a figure set by legislation. At this level, the water activity is low enough to ensure no proliferation of microorganisms, while the finished product is undeformable.

While on the one hand it may appear to be a fairly straightforward process, the exact thermal conditions to which the dough is subjected during the drying phase have an impact on its structure and porosity, which in turn affects its mechanical strength and texture during firing.

Four factors influence quality pasta base: processing temperature, humidity and time, and the residual moisture gradient in the final product. As engineers try to find the right balance in their process to achieve the highest quality end product, drying cycles are becoming more and more sophisticated. And this is where FAVA and Pavan have been especially innovative in their approach.

Drying: a complex process

A typical, modern production line consists of five main process components - a mixer/extruder, pre-dryer, dryer, cooler and packer .The pre-drying and drying sections represent the most complex and largest portion of the costs (about 65 percent) of these multi-million dollar machines. With temperatures inside reaching over 100C (and high relative humidity), components must be carefully designed to sustain the thermal expansion generated by the temperature change.

Traditionally, the paste is dried at temperatures below 50C for long periods of time - 20 to 30 hours. In the last two decades, the industry has been gradually shaping the temperature up to around 100C, which has had a significant impact on processing time. Current drying cycles, five to six hours for long pasta - a number everyone agrees is close to the limit.

"Drying cycles at low temperatures, at high temperatures, and at very high temperatures and the advantages of each type of cycle have been discussed for a long time," Fava says. "In the late 1980s, the race toward the application of very high temperatures and short drying cycles was proposed as the ideal solution by some of the competitors.However, the results showed that high-quality pulp is not made in a 'hurry,' and there is no advantage in promoting fast drying cycles at ultra-high temperatures. "

Today, Fava says, the drying cycle is clear to everyone .That may be so, but engineers at the two companies have taken very different approaches to working out the fundamentals of momentum, heat and mass transfer to achieve the optimum final moisture content and cycle time. They have even engaged academic researchers and technical experts at institutions such as the University of Milan, the Ministry of Agriculture and the National Research Institute for Food and Nutrition in Rome to weigh in on the science.

Two ways to heat-treat pasta

Zoccasays Pavan revolutionized the market 20 years ago with a patented drying process that drastically reduces drying time, without altering the properties of the pasta.He says his company currently has the fastest drying cycle - five hours - for long-cut pasta.

In his process, Pavan applies high temperature in the initial phase of the drying process, which tells him that the enzymatic activity blocks (which maintains the nutritional properties) and improves the color of the product. Due to the high temperature rapidly decreases the water content, it also reduces the processing time so that the magic of less than six hours figure. The low humidity of the air at this stage, according to them, also protects the delicate starches in the pasta from swelling.

The pasta is then passed through a series of alternating phases of rapid drying and stabilization - this second step essentially involves remoistening the outer layer of the pasta while maintaining a constant temperature. Zocca says this process, basically annealing, eliminates any residual stress that could lead to rupture in the final product and provides a stable product suitable for primary conditioning. To closely monitor conditions and adjust variables in each zone and produce paste with texture and color, the hair is divided into a series of zones with independent controls for air temperature, relative humidity, heat exchanges and exhaust.

"Our competitive advantage is that our process allows us to have lower grade (durum wheat) flours and obtain a higher quality end product than could be achieved by traditional processes," says Zocca.

FAVA technology involves a sequence of engineered operations, which Fava says guarantees maximum drying flexibility and ease of operation. Thecompany's website also states that the gradual cooling and stabilization process then represents one of the most important innovations in the production of long pasta.

Instead of a series of alternating dryer and stabilizing phases, the process consists of a relatively intense pre-drying phase, followed by a rapid, 160-minute drying cycle in which the pulp reaches a maximum temperature in a short time. It is then quickly lowered. The third and final stage is the stabilization zone, which brings the pulp to a uniform moisture content to eliminate all demands. The entire process is tightly controlled by PLC to produce the desired characteristics in the final product.

Continuous innovation, cook pasta

Although they have chosen to adopt very different approaches in their process, both companies clearly produce a quality end product - they each own 35 percent share of the global market and have operating lines in plants around the world .And it is not resting on its successes to maintain its dominant position in the future. Both say they are investing a lot of time, energy and resources in R&D to improve the production process and product quality.

One thing about these Italians, though, they do tend to be a bit, well, snobbish when it comes to pasta: "It's overcooked all over the world," Fava insists.">"One thing about these Italians, though, they tend to be a bit, well, snobbish when it comes to pasta: "It's overcooked all over the world," Fava insists.


Which makes one wonder why these companies are spending so much engineering time and effort to ensure that a high-quality product comes off the end of the line, if we're all just vacationing in Malaga spaghetti until the limp.


Fava has the answer: "Even an overcooked pasta," he says, "is better than a badly made one."">Fava has the answer: "Even an overcooked pasta," he says, "is better than a badly made one."


To achieve a high-quality end product, pavan's drying process, shown here for short pasta, alternates a series of drying (A1, A2) and stabilizing or annealing (S1, S2) steps, in which a wide range of temperature and air humidity values can be obtained.


Source: Pavan Group


To achieve a high-quality end product, FAVA's drying process, shown here for short cut pasta, is based on gradual cooling and a long stabilization period to eliminate any residual stresses.">

Source: FAVA S.p.A.