Cosmo conjures up a way to sell pizzas to Italy

The phrase originates from when the city was the centre of a bustling coal mining area and the UK’s first coal exporting port. Trying to interest a Geordie in a sack of coal was hopeless.

It seems equally ludicrous to set your sights on selling pizza to the Italians.

But the idea looks set to become a business success, at least in Midlothian.

Cosmo Pasta Products at Eskbank has just signed an export deal to supply a company in the northern Italian city of Parma with a whopping 750,000 pizzas.

And the export order will help the company almost double its turnover, expand its staff and move into new premises.

Cosmo Tamburro came from his native southern Italy to Edinburgh in 1958 and worked as a chef in some of the city’s top hotels before opening his own restaurant in Union Street in the 1960s.

In the 1970s, from the basement of his restaurant, Mr Tamburro made pasta noodles and started adding ingredients so that they could be sold as ready meals.

This side of the business started to expand until, in 1992, it was ready for the big move to the company’s current factory on Harden Green Industrial Estate in Eskbank, Midlothian.

By this time Tamburro senior had been joined by his son, also Cosmo, who started making pasta after a spell as a motor mechanic. It is the younger Tamburro who now runs the business.

Mr Tamburro junior explained: "My father had a long established name as one of the better Italian restaurants in Edinburgh before he moved into the food production business.

"Most of the food involves his recipes and his expertise and we have transposed it here. We produce good, natural, traditional food and we don’t use many additives or very much mechanisation.

"We started off supplying ready-made and microwave meals to the Scottish retail market, including supermarkets, and over the last ten years we have grown both geographically and in the number of products we offer.

"As far as our catering goes, we have had steady growth and now supply all the primary and secondary schools in Midlothian with pizza as well as Edinburgh University and pubs and hotels as far away as London and Shetland.

"About four years ago we also approached some of the football clubs to see if we could provide their supporters with pizza at the stadiums as an alternative to the more traditional pies. We now supply both Hibs and Celtic."

From the early days the company has grown to a staff of 35 with an annual turnover of 1.2 million.

And with the completion of the Italian pizza supply deal this figure is set to rise to 2m over the next year. But these are no ordinary pizzas Cosmo is selling. They are gluten-free and can therefore be eaten by celiacs - people who are wheat-intolerant.

About one in 1000 people in the UK suffer from the condition. It is thought to be on the increase, although this may just be a result of better detection rates. Some countries such as India and Ireland have a higher percentage among their populations.

The solution to gluten sensitivity is "simply" to avoid gluten, but following a gluten-free diet has proved in the past to be extremely inconvenient.

A lot of celiac-suitable food, including bread, has until recently only been readily available from pharmacies or at highly inflated prices in supermarkets, and there is little gluten-free convenience food on the market at all.

This gap is now being addressed by Cosmo’s, which has teamed up with Italian company Schar, Europe’s largest manufacturer of gluten-free pasta, breads, and pastries. Schar will distribute the Cosmo products across Europe from its centre in Parma.

Mr Tamburro said: "We have been working on this for a year or so now. We had a bit of good fortune because we were approached by a company in England called Nature’s Gate who asked if we could make gluten-free products.

"My father worked with the technical guys in England using rice flour, tapioca starch, potato starch and xanthum gum amongst other ingredients to come up with the gluten-free formula.

"Nature’s Gate then joined together with Schar and that has led to this major export deal."

The company had to fight off other bids for the business but the quality of its product was recognised when it came up against a major competitor at a gluten-free food exhibition in Malta and was declared the better product.

"This is a big market and a big chance for us. Celiacs are not well catered for. Breads which are made for them are not good and there is a need for more convenience products such as lasagne, pasta and pizza," said Mr Tamburro.

The export business will be worth around 750,000 for Cosmo with a contract to supply 350,000 pizzas in 2003 and 385,000 in 2004.

Frozen pizzas will be shipped overland to Parma and from there will be distributed throughout the Schar network which stretches from Italy across the rest of Europe and into Scandinavia.

And there are hopes that the pizza business will lead to advances in other products. Cosmo is keen to diversify into gluten-free pasta, and gluten-free sun-dried tomato and olive bread is already close to production.

But the company is not about to rest on its laurels and is also looking at ways to increase its business in this country.

Mr Tamburro said: "We are striving to keep our brand going and to get it moving forward. We have recently been involved in discussions with Costco in order to produce a more high value product than the food it offers at the moment.

"We are looking to produce an enhanced range of branded pizzas which will offer added value and a higher specification."

One major expansion the company is considering is a move into the London market. Mr Tamburro sees "phenomenal business opportunities" and "vast available potential" inside the M25.

He said: "The problem many Scottish companies find with moving into London is that of logistics. It is hard with our fresh products which have a shelf life of only seven days from when they are manufactured.

"There is a real problem shifting one or two pallets to the independent retailers in the city centre, especially when this needs to be done on an almost daily basis.

"But we are looking at the options for this and working with Nature’s Gate to see if we can operate our own logistics set up with lorries running full back up to Scotland on their return trip."

With the increased turnover next year, the company’s workforce will increase to 50 and there is an imminent move to new purpose-built facilities at Newtongrange.

Mr Tamburro is very optimistic for the future. "We are going to continue developing gluten-free and ordinary products and look at building the Cosmo brand up higher within the UK," he said.

And it looks as if the company is ready for a bigger and bigger slice of the action.