Insight
Bartolucci: American food must move toward natural ingredients without additives
“America needs to be natural. It doesn't have to be, you know, hippie natural, but we can't keep eating all this, these additives.”
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Bypassing middlemen to source directly from Italian factories spiked profits
“So we went there and found new factories and suddenly realized that the pricing that we had was very unfair, and so when we went direct, we made a lot more money.”
Assertion Supported
Bartolucci: Einkorn wheat lacks specific gluten proteins found in other wheats
“It has a very weak gluten. So there are certain types of glutinins or proteins. In all other kinds of wheat that einkorn does not have.”
Disclosure
Bartolucci rejected advisor pressure to make Jovial an einkorn-only brand
“A lot of advisors said, don't do anything but einkorn. You're the einkorn person. And I'm like, it's going to take years.
Guy Raz: To get people to know what it is.
Carla Bartolucci: I can't do that. I need to come up with, you know, something else.”
What-if
Einkorn wheat's thin margins wouldn't justify a launch financially
“If you looked at the margins on einkorn, they never would have happened unless I was crazy.”
Insight
Jovial refuses outside funding, financing all expansion strictly through cash flow
“I don't spend money unless I have it, so if I want to do a project, I make sure that we make the money that we need to cover it, because you can choose what supermarkets or chains or whatever you present to. You don't have to say yes to everybody.”
Opinion
Bartolucci: In Italy, getting ahead without family wealth is almost impossible
“Because in Italy, you know, people don't really make a lot of money, and if your parents don't have something, it's almost impossible to get ahead”
Assertion Open · timeframe Jun 2021
Bartolucci took a $65,000 mortgage on parents' house for startup capital
“And we took 65,000 dollar mortgage on my parents' house.”
Assertion Not publicly verifiable
Bionaturae became the top-selling organic pasta in the US
“And so, it took, I'm not sure how many years, but BioNature became the number one organic selling pasta in the United States.”
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Bionaturae reached about $15 million in annual sales around 2008
“I mean, we were about maybe fifteen million in sales and things were ok.”
Assertion Supported
Bartolucci: Einkorn is not gluten-free and cannot be eaten by celiacs
“It is not gluten-free. You can't eat it if you have celiac disease.”
Assertion Supported
Whole Foods took Jovial einkorn pasta nationally, but it failed to sell
“They took it nationally, and it was actually not too hard to get the products in distribution, but unfortunately, they did not sell.”
Disclosure
Jovial Foods reached profitability after three years of tight operations
“I think we were profitable after the third year. Not immensely profitable, and I think we had two years where we lost money, but we've run a tight ship.”
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Bartolucci: Jovial's cassava pasta grew faster than its brown rice pasta
“So grain-free was becoming popular, and I felt like I could do this well with no added ingredients, nothing, just cassava and water, and that product has taken off way faster than brown rice pasta.”
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Jovial has fully covered employee health insurance from day one
“So from day one, I've always paid a hundred percent of every employee's health insurance and covered every expense, because we have this European kind of sensibility to things like that.”
Disclosure
Bartolucci: Sold Mystic Food Business for About $25,000 After One Year
“So after a year, we decided to put the business up for sale. We just wanted to move back to Italy. My husband always wanted to own a farm or something, and we sold the business for about, I think it was like, 25,000 dollars.”
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Bartolucci: First Bionaturae order was a $20,000 20-foot container
“Our first order, I believe it was about 20,000 dollars. It was a 20 foot container.”
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Bartolucci: Brother loaned her $85,000 to launch Bionaturae
“My brother loaned me 85,000 dollars.”
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Bionaturae hit $500,000 in first-year sales near break-even
“I think we managed to sell about 500,000 dollars the first year. And at the end of the year, I was really behind in the QuickBooks and putting things into the computers, but it was the end of the year, so I had put all the bills and all the expenses, and I ran…”
Disclosure
Bartolucci: Reinvested all profits annually instead of taking money out
“You're just gonna have to keep reinvesting your profits every year, and that's what I did.”
Assertion Supported
Bartolucci: Italy mandates certified restaurant training for celiac disease
“Italy loves people with food, and they regard celiac disease as a serious disease. So, you know, people are trained in restaurants, certified. They just have a complete respect.”
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Bartolucci: Gluten-free brown rice pasta is Jovial's best-selling product
“Yes, and it totally does today, too. It's our best-selling product.”
