Pasta sales way up in down economy

March 25, 2009, ST. LOUIS – The floor inside the New World Pasta factory in south St. Louis is
slippery with dry spaghetti shards and discarded elbow macaroni.

March 25, 2009, ST. LOUIS – The floor inside the New World Pasta factory in south St. Louis is
slippery with dry spaghetti shards and discarded elbow macaroni.

Workers in hairnets buzz around the hangar-like space, sweeping, fixing
their eyes on computerized panels and surveying conveyer belts lined
with boxes and bags of shells and bow-ties.

The production lines – all eight of them – are running full tilt, churning out 1,500 pounds of pasta an hour, 24 hours a day.

"We've
been going six days a week since January," said Christopher Getsfred,
the plant manager and pasta veteran of more than a quarter century.
"Usually it dies down after January, but this year that hasn't
happened." | READ MORE