Alberto: Achieving sustainability one dish of pasta at a time

We are what we eat, so that food is the most powerful factor in inducing sustainability through our eating habits. With the strength of this awareness, the 34-year-old Alberto Cartasegna, Bocconi Class of 2014 graduate in Accounting, Financial Management and Control, co-founded Miscusi in 2016, a restaurant chain offering fresh pasta dishes that has spread all across Northern Italy. Sixteen restaurants and over 300 employees attracting 2 million customers per year, for a turnover exceeding 20 million euros in 2023. And with the prospect of expanding abroad.

What is the idea that drives Miscusi?

We have reached a historical moment that is as fascinating as it is frightening. For the first time in history we are aware of being drivers of our own potential extinction. Our selfishness makes us say we must save our planet, when in reality it is us who must save ourselves. We don't own the planet and it will survive without us anyway. We therefore need a Copernican revolution: we must return to the idea and the awareness of being part of nature, not above it. When I say that we are what we eat, it is because food is the most powerful remedy we have to awaken this awareness. Food is a primary direct cause of global warming (25% of GHG emissions), but it is also an immense opportunity, as a vector of life and energy capable of healing and regenerating. And this is the recipe that we bring to the table at Miscusi.

You do it with a plate of pasta. A bit of a gamble in a country where pasta is the national flag..

In fact, at the beginning investors were making fun of us, but then we demonstrated that, with our simplicity, the idea of home, family, and attention to quality that has always governed our choices, we could persuade the market. Our idea was born from the desire to promote the benefits of the Mediterranean diet starting from Italy, the country where it originated but also a place with a high obesity rate, where American fast food companies have a huge market. In this sense, we need a bit more of Italy in fast food restaurants offering Italian food.

Returning to a diet that is as healthy and sustainable as possible. How does this combination materialize in your business?

During Covid, we started a regenerative agriculture project (reduced water consumption, attention to the natural regeneration of the soil, no chemicals) which gave rise to the intensification of our R&D efforts. Today our offer includes sorghum pasta, a cereal that consumes 90% less water and emits 85% less CO2 during its growth. Miscusi was among the first B-Corps in Italy and the thing that motivates us is precisely the intangible impact we can have on people and other companies.

Before Alberto was an entrepreneur, he was a student and a consultant. What was your career journey?

After my three-year undergraduate program at Bicocca, I enrolled in the English-language graduate program in Accounting and Control at Bocconi. Here in my second year I had the opportunity of being an exchange student at Indiana University. The very stimulating thing is that I actually attended MBA classes there, since there was no equivalent of our two-year Master of Science. A great experience, on a campus of 48,000 people where I was one of only three Italians. It was there that the name that our company, Miscusi, originated.

In what sense?

I had a German friend who every time we met he’d shout “Mi scusi!” and then quote a phrase from the 'Family Guy' animated series. That phrase made me reflect on the idea that foreigners have of our way of being and was in its own way the inspiration for the name we bear today. By the way, that German friend became our first investor when the company was born.

After that student exchange, the first experiences first at Boston Consulting Group and then at Rocket Internet.

The experience at BCG made me understand that consultancy was not for me. I needed speed, I wanted to put actual things on the ground, I wanted to give an outlet to my entrepreneurial passion: thus came the move to Rocket Internet, in Berlin, where I immediately made clear I wasn't interested in being a consultant. They put a credit card and a ticket to Italy in my hand, so I became country manager for Italy and also for Spain of a startup that was being born then, Helpling (maid services). For me it was an enormously positive experience, but there was a piece missing there, too. After a few years of work, in fact, I began to understand that certain values had to shape my professional life. At that point I understood what my path would be: I wanted to return to Italy and contribute to the progress of my country.

Hence the decision to found Miscusi.

Yes, I wanted to found a company based in Italy and starting from my homeland. I liked the restaurant sector, I had always worked there. The idea of fresh pasta was born because in Berlin I was often patron of the VaPiano chain, which is now an international brand. Doing market research on quality fast food restaurants in Italy, which has been a growing sector for 30 years, I realized that everything revolves around pizza and burgers and, now, also poké. There were no good restaurant chains for pasta.

The son of two postal workers, you always paid for your studies by delivering pizzas in Cernusco sul Naviglio, working also as a waiter, kitchen assistant and chef. What is your conception of being an entrepreneur today?

I believe that being an entrepreneur is the most powerful art form known to man. It is intangible, but concrete. It means focusing on a vision capable of attracting talent, capital and ambassadors. Anyone who wants to be an entrepreneur must think that their journey must be directed towards the highest possible common goal. Today, the business model of every company must contain as many sustainable development objectives as possible. Not only at the foundation, at Easter or Christmas, but every day of the income statement. Today's entrepreneur cannot do without thinking that his or her vision only makes sense if it creates value for everyone implied.

Alberto Cartasegna, co-founder and CEO of Miscusi, graduated from Bocconi in 2014 in Accounting, Financial Management and Control. “I came from an undergraduate program at Bicocca and in the beginning I had to work a lot. At Bocconi the environment was very challenging, but for this very reason also very stimulating. Today I miss studying a bit, I would like to be able to reconcile my business activity with academia."