Carla’s Pasta in South Windsor temporarily closes for maintenance

Carla’s Pasta in South Windsor will temporarily close for two weeks beginning today for equipment maintenance.

The 200,000-square-foot facility that makes pasta, sauce and other food products typically closes for maintenance for a couple weeks each summer, but is moving up the annual work, said Sandro Nicola Squatrito, the family company’s vice president of business development. 

More than 100 of Carla’s Pasta’s approximately 240 employees will be furloughed until the plant’s planned reopening on May 11, Squatrito said.

“We’ve heard a lot of plants didn’t handle the shutdown properly and now there’s outbreaks, we don’t want to have that here,” Squatrito said, emphasizing that as a BRC certified — the global standard for food safety — Carla’s Pasta cleans multiple times per day, and is closing for maintenance, not cleaning.

The temporary closure comes as Carla’s Pasta faces headwinds from the impact COVID-19 is having on its customers. “Significantly more than half” of the company’s customers are restaurants, which have all closed due to the pandemic, Squatrito said. 

Squatrito wouldn’t disclose Carla’s Pasta’s exact annual revenue, but said it’s less than $200 million per year. Over the past month, the company has taken in about half the revenue it typically earns during the same time in a normal year, Squatrito said. 

Restaurants and restaurant suppliers everywhere are very concerned about what the business climate will look like after pandemic shutdowns are lifted, Squatrito said, but he’s focused on remaining relevant, whatever the new normal looks like.

“Carla’s will morph into the company that it needs to be for the future, not doing what it’s done in the past,” Squatrito said.