Cumbrian Pasta Brand Northern Pasta Co. Lands Waitrose Deal and Debut Cookbook

Northern Pasta Co., the husband-and-wife operation out of Gatebeck Business Park near Kendal, secured its first bricks-and-mortar supermarket listing this week: Radiatori, Fusilli and Rigatoni now sit on Waitrose shelves nationwide at £3.95 for 450g. The brand had been available through Ocado and more than 250 independent retailers before the April 1 launch, but Waitrose is its first slot in a major national grocer, and for home cooks who have been meaning to try the stuff, this is the moment that actually makes it convenient.

Before you shop, it's worth knowing what the grain actually does differently. Northern Pasta Co. builds everything around regeneratively grown British spelt, a heritage grain that behaves differently from the durum wheat in a standard supermarket box. Spelt gives you a nuttier, earthier flavour that registers clearly in simple preparations: a light butter sauce, a dressed salad, anything where the grain is not buried under a heavy meat ragù. It also cooks faster than conventional dried pasta, and Northern Pasta Co. attributes its easier digestibility to both the grain itself and the brand's slow, low-temperature drying process, which preserves nutrients without the heat shortcuts common in mass production. Bronze-die extrusion completes the picture: each piece carries a roughened surface that grips sauce the way a smooth-pressed shape never quite manages. The whole operation runs on solar power at the Kendal site.

Co-founder Imogen Royall, who launched the brand with Matt Kenyon in 2022 after discovering British spelt while working at a local artisan bakery, did not frame the Waitrose placement as a volume play: "From the very beginning, our goal has been to create pasta that not only tastes exceptional but supports British farmers and restores our soils. To now see our products on shelves nationwide at Waitrose feels incredibly special." The brand had already drawn endorsements from Thomasina Miers and Paul Burgalières, executive chef at L'Enclume in Cartmel, before the deal materialized.

Royall's debut cookbook, Pasta for the People (Murdoch Books), publishes April 30 and gives each Waitrose shape a proper workout. The standout recipe to cook first is Olia Hercules's Rigatoni from Napoli via Genoa and Odesa, which routes the shape's generous tube and ridged surface through three culinary geographies in a single dish and showcases exactly what spelt's nuttier depth adds when the sauce has real complexity. For a lighter entry point, Max La Manna's Zesty Radiatori Summer Salad plays to the Radiatori's tightly finned ridges, which trap dressing and small ingredients where flatter shapes shed them. Saliha Khan's Desi Meema Rigatoni and Izzie Cox's Miso Gochujang Pumpkin Rigatoni round out a roster that makes clear this is not a pasta brand interested in staying in Italian-British lane.

For the Rigatoni specifically, Northern Pasta Co. describes it as "made for big flavours," suited to hearty ragùs, chunky sauces and bold slow-cooked preparations. That matches the Olia Hercules recipe precisely, and it is the best possible first use of the £3.95 you'll spend at Waitrose this week.