From Fields of Wheat to Plates of Pasta – Celebrate Pasta Month!

The North Dakota Wheat Commission is celebrating National Pasta Month in October as a way to recognize the state’s durum producers, mills, and pasta manufacturers and the role they play in putting pasta on the plates of consumers. Each year, a new theme is developed to celebrate the occasion. This year’s theme is “From Fields of Wheat to Plates of Pasta,” a way to recognize the fact that the durum produced in our state ends up as pasta on the plates of consumers here and around the word.

North Dakota remains the largest durum producing state in the country with average production of 40 million bushels, enough to produce 1.7 billion boxes of pasta! The state also boasts numerous processing facilities including Minot Milling (a division of Philadelphia Macaroni), Dakota Growers Pasta (8th Avenue Pasta) and the North Dakota Mill, in addition to some smaller facilities. While the bulk of the state’s durum production is processed in country, the U.S. exports about 20 million bushels of durum to countries such as Algeria, Italy, Morocco and Venezuela. Here at home, we definitely enjoy our plates of pasta, with the U.S. as a whole consuming almost 6 billion pounds of pasta each year!

To help celebrate Pasta Month, the Commission will be partnering with statewide media to provide durum and pasta facts and trivia. Readers and listeners will have a chance to win a pasta prize package, so have your ears and eyes open! Thank you to our prize sponsors: Dakota Growers Pasta, Philadelphia Macaroni, North Dakota Mill, and the U.S. Durum Growers Association. For great pasta cooking tips and recipes, visit http://www.sharethepasta.org and for more information on pasta month, visit http://www.ndwheat.com