Giovanni Rana (born 15 October 1937) is an Italian pasta maker and founder of the Giovanni Rana brand of Italian food products including refrigerated pasta, sauces, and ready-made dishes. The brand started in 1962 with homemade

tortellini ''Tortellini'' are pasta originally from the Italian region of Emilia (in particular Bologna and Modena). Traditionally they are stuffed with a mix of meat (pork loin, raw prosciutto, mortadella), Parmigiano Reggiano cheese, egg and nutmeg and serv ...

and has since expanded, distributing products in 38 countries.

Life and career

Giovanni Rana was born in 1937. He joined his brothers at the family bakery in

San Giovanni Lupatoto San Giovanni Lupatoto is a town and ''comune'' (municipality) in the Province of Verona in the Italian region Veneto, located about west of Venice Venice ( ; it, Venezia ; vec, Venesia or ) is a city in northeastern Italy and the capi ...

Verona Verona ( , ; vec, Verona or ) is a city on the Adige River in Veneto, Northern Italy, Italy, with 258,031 inhabitants. It is one of the seven provincial capitals of the region. It is the largest city Comune, municipality in the region and the ...

, in 1950 and began making tortellini, personally preparing the pasta and the filling. He began producing pasta and made the deliveries door-to-door with his motorbike. In 1962 Pastificio Rana officially opened its doors. At the beginning the production, the pasta was strictly handmade. Rana himself oversaw its distribution and delivered the tortellini from house to house. With the assistance of local engineers and mechanics, Giovanni Rana designed and developed new machines to meet the increasing demand for pasta. The machines increased production from about of tortellini an hour to about an hour. In 1971, the factory moved to its current location of San Giovanni Lupatoto. Rana's son Gian Luca (today the CEO of his father's company) joined the company and expanded the brand to other European countries and the US. The first factory in Chicago opened in 2012. In October 2012 the Giovanni Rana pasta company opened its first restaurant in the

United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territorie ...

at the

Chelsea Market Chelsea Market is a food hall, shopping mall, office building and television production facility located in the Chelsea neighborhood of the borough of Manhattan, in New York City. The Chelsea Market complex occupies an entire city block with a ...

complex in the

Chelsea Chelsea or Chelsey may refer to: Places Australia * Chelsea, Victoria Canada * Chelsea, Nova Scotia * Chelsea, Quebec United Kingdom * Chelsea, London, an area of London, bounded to the south by the River Thames ** Chelsea (UK Parliament consti ...

neighborhood of

Manhattan Manhattan (), known regionally as the City, is the most densely populated and geographically smallest of the five boroughs of New York City. The borough is also coextensive with New York County, one of the original counties of the U.S. state ...

New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the List of United States cities by population, most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the L ...

. The same year the firm opened a restaurant at

Regent's Place Regent's Place is a mixed use business and retail and (from 2010) residential quarter on the north side of Euston Road in the London Borough of Camden. The site is also bounded by Osnaburgh Street to the west, Longford and Drummond Streets to ...

London London is the capital and largest city of England and the United Kingdom, with a population of just under 9 million. It stands on the River Thames in south-east England at the head of a estuary down to the North Sea, and has been a majo ...

England England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Wales to its west and Scotland to its north. The Irish Sea lies northwest and the Celtic Sea to the southwest. It is separated from continental Europe b ...

, which is its first eatery in the

United Kingdom The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, commonly known as the United Kingdom (UK) or Britain, is a country in Europe, off the north-western coast of the continental mainland. It comprises England, Scotland, Wales and North ...

References

External links

Giovanni Rana's U.S. Web Site

Giovanni Rana Pastificio & Cucina Restaurant in New York

Giovanni Rana Web Site (Italy)
{{DEFAULTSORT:Rana, Giovanni Italian pasta companies 1937 births Italian chefs Italian brands Living people