Pasta Armando is the premium brand of the De Matteis pasta factory that distinguishes high-quality pasta, produced with 100% Italian wheat from the Armando supply chain, marketed in Italy and over 10 foreign countries. The Armando Supply Chain was born in 2010 from the intuition of the President Cavaliere del Lavoro Armando Enzo De Matteis. It was one of the first realities of this kind and nowadays is unique in the Italian panorama because it provides a direct agreement with each individual grower.

The "Armando Pact" signed by the company and the farmer implies the observance of a strict cultivation discipline based on virtuous agricultural practices. The farmer undertakes to sow the varieties of durum wheat agreed with De Matteis and to cultivate them in compliance with a strict cultivation discipline to provide a grain with high protein content and excellent organoleptic characteristics capable of guaranteeing high-quality pasta. Meanwhile the company undertakes to provide assistance in the field of a dedicated technical staff and to purchase the harvest at a guaranteed minimum price. Furthermore, the compensation for farmers increases in proportion to the quality parameters of the harvest. The farmer can thus count on the certainty of revenues and greater profitability.

The Armando Supply Chain agreement born in 2010, in its 11 years of life has now produced important and concrete results:

• In terms of food safety: the innovative Method Zero Residue of Pesticides and Glyphosate certification by the certification body Bureau Veritas;

• In terms of economic sustainability: over 10 million euros distributed to farmers belonging to the Armando Supply Chain, as a result of the reward linked to improving the quality of the wheat;

• In terms of the qualitative yield of wheat: the wheat produced in these 10 years by the Armando Supply Chain, thanks to the virtuous practices deriving from the application of the cultivation regulations, has reached protein levels that are about 20% higher than the national averages (published by CREATE reports);

• In terms of quantitative yield: the farmers participating in the pact can increase the average production per hectare by up to 15%;

• Over 800 farms involved in 8 different regions of central and southern Italy, for a dedicated cultivated area of over 15,000 hectares.