Del Monte Italian Escapades brings out innovative pasta recipes created by foodies from across India

Del Monte today announced the winner of its ongoing ‘Del Monte Italian Escapades’ contest which invited consumers and foodies from across India to contribute their unique pasta recipes.

The recipes were shortlisted and judged by celebrity chef Ranveer Brar, who also recreated six recipes and chose the recipe sent in by Samina Patel as the winner.  Samina Patel will get an all-expense paid customized trip to Italy for an exquisite food and culture experience. The trip would include twilight food tour of Rome, a pasta making class with an Italian Nonna and a classic Italian meal at a Tuscan farmhouse.

The contest highlights the growing popularity of Italian food in India and consumers cooking at home in particular. Pasta has emerged as a big consumer favourite when it comes to Italian food in the country and sales of imported gourmet pasta in India have been growing at over 25% every year. Del Monte is the largest gourmet pasta brand in India and offers the widest variety of pasta to consumers.

Since people are increasingly finding a new generation of cookbooks on the digital space to learn recipes from, Del Monte India leveraged this platform through the ‘Del Monte Italian Escapades’ campaign to engage with consumers. The campaign saw participation from over 300 top food bloggers in the country to create original, unique and innovative pasta recipes. The contest received close to 200 original pasta recipes created by food aficionados.

Commenting on the increasing popularity of Italian cuisine and food as a category on the digital platform, Mr. Yogesh Bellani, CEO FieldFresh Pvt. Ltd said “The campaign ‘Del Monte Italian Escapades’ is predominantly a digital led activation as we see a big overlap between our core target group for gourmet Italian products, in fact for our brand as a whole, and the online audience in India. Also given the rise of visual led social networks like Pinterest and Instagram, where food and recipes images are some of the most shared content, digital is clearly a key medium for us to drive awareness and preference for the brand”.

Delighted to be associated with Del Monte for the event and overwhelmed by the participation that the contest generated, Chef Ranveer Brar said, “Italian cuisine has come a long way in India. Initially the cuisine was relished by the urban Indians at fine-dining places. Later Pasta was introduced by QSRs, and now a large section of our society prepares it at home, and not just for special occasions but as a day-to-day meal. I am pleased to see the enthusiasm that the participants have showered. Not only the number of entries but the creativity that the participants showcased to craft innovative recipes is extremely encouraging. It was indeed difficult to choose the best recipe and finally one winner out of the 185 recipes that the contest received.” He added.