Meet Carl Mazzone, president of Mazzone Pasta
Carl Mazzone is the president of Mazzone Pasta, a pasta manufacturing company in Bloomindale Illinois, a town located 25 miles west of the city of Chicago. The company features a 5500 m² manufacturing facility equipped with GEA Pavan machines. The striking characteristic of the plant is the variety of products that it can provide, thanks to an efficient management of the site and the space at its disposal. The factory includes two lines completely supplied by GEA Pavan. Thanks to them, it produces a wide variety of products, such as: cappelletti, ravioli, tortellini, short-cut pasta, lasagna, fettucine, tagliatelle and cannelloni. All these products can be either cooked and frozen or packaged as prepared meals with the addition of different sauces.
What comes to your mind when you think of pasta?
When I think of pasta I think of family. I think of Sunday dinners watching my grandmother make gnocchi e ravioli by hand. All the family around, me taking bread and dipping it in the gravy, and sneaking ravioli; thinking of pasta is just thinking of family gatherings, holiday and good food. It has always been an important element of our daily life and when we decided to start a manufacturing company, I was very excited to do it in this field.
How did you begin working on the new facility?
When we knew it was time to build the new facility to accommodate our growth, we knew the most important part was going to be the pasta manufacturing equipment. We spent a lot of time researching many different companies that make pasta manufacturing lines and we quickly realized that Pavan made the best equipment on the market. We value the experience of working with Pavan from an all-around perspective, since we worked and still do with their team of engineers, designers, installation specialists in training and setting up our machines. This helps us understand how to manage the machines, resulting in more independency from a production point of view. We quickly found out that they are the best company out there and suited all our needs.
What were your first impressions when you started collaborating with Pavan?
When we made the decision to go with Pavan for our pasta manufacturing equipment, they really wanted to dive into the end-result. They really cared about what product were we looking to put on the marketplace. They spent many hours showing us and going through all the different examples and scenarios to get to the final output of product, and we worked long and hard on that, but they were very patient with us and guided us through the whole process. It is very important for a company like us to have a supplier that has this kind of perspective: starting our work from the final product is the most appealing matter for a manufacturer, because in the end that’s what makes the difference when competing with others, especially in the pasta industry. That is why our focus was not on big volumes. Even though the machines have good working capacity, we want to focus on the quality of the end-result. Our main goal is to offer a wide variety of products, characterized all by high quality, which is reflected from the choice of raw materials to the final product.
It is very important for a company like us to have a supplier that has this kind of perspective: starting our work from the final product is the most appealing matter for a manufacturer, because in the end that’s what makes the difference when competing with others, especially in the pasta industry " - Carl Mazzone, President of Mazzone Pasta
- Carl Mazzone, President of Mazzone Pasta
How is your facility structured?
We have two lines entirely supplied by Pavan, both fed by two 15-ton silos. One line is dedicated to short-cut pasta and filled pasta. Here we have a Grim continuous automatic mixer that mixes the raw materials and prepares the dough, which is then taken to an extruder for short-cut pasta. In order to produce double sheet sheeting, we have an SPTW 540 and an RRW540. As far as forming is concerned, this line features an MRD540 for cappelletti and two MRTW540 for tortellini , which are paired with three SPW540 - single sheet sheeting machines. The formed products are then taken to a water cooker and consequently to a water cooler. The second line in our facility is dedicated to tagliatelle, lasagna and cannelloni. By using an MKS we mix the raw materials, prepare the dough and the sheet. Then we have different cutters for each product, a CSF 540 for tagliatelle, a TL 750 for cannelloni and one for lasagna. Our production facility also includes machines for gnocchi and other pasta formats, where we have one forming machine for plain and filled gnocchi and an MR 265 for tortellacci and saccottoni.
How would you rate your experience with Pavan?
We are very satisfied with Pavan. I couldn’t imagine doing this without them. Going through this whole process of thinking about building a pasta manufacturing facility, talking with architects, I cannot imagine doing this without Pavan. They have pretty much been part of everything, designing, understanding, operating; they have been a great partner for us and again, I just couldn’t imagine running this facility without their equipment. Having a supplier that assists you all around is great, it feels like you are working more with a partner than an actual supplier.
