Wheat intolerance leads to development of new pastas

When an Italian finds out he has an intolerance to wheat, measures have to be taken. So husband and wife team, Nico Olivieri and Sabine Hobbel created a healthy alternative in the form of wheat-free pasta, which is made with with chickpeas and buckwheat. Its popularity grew among clients encouraging them develop the products under the name Leaves. The couple started Leaves on the back of a corporate catering company they had set up when moving to Dublin from Amsterdam.

“We got a lot of compliments about the pasta. People were so enthusiastic about it and kept urging us to put it into retail that’s how Leaves started. Nutritionally speaking it means that just one serving of our pasta has more protein than one serving of salmon, [it is] really high in protein.”

With the AIB Start-Up Academy over, Leaves's immediate project is a pasta cook book to raise funds for the Make a Wish Foundation.

Now that the products are in Supervalu and some health food shops nationwide, the company is hoping to begin to sell their pasta to foreign markets. “We have strong interest from the UK and The Netherlands, we are expecting to secure both these markets this year. We’re also talking to speciality distributors in the US and UAE but that won’t happen until the end of next year.”

– FIONA ALSTON