Germans’ hunger for Italian pasta is growing. However, a type of pasta that is particularly valued in southern Germany is finding fewer and fewer friends.
Germany imports more pasta than ever before – primarily from Italy. Around 440,300 tons of pasta worth a good 641.9 million euros were imported from abroad last year, as the Federal Statistical Office announced on World Pasta Day on October 25th.
Around 379,400 tons of the imported pasta came from Italy. This corresponds to a share of 86.2 percent. Austria followed a long way behind in second place with 19,900 tons or 4.5 percent of all pasta imports, while Greece took third place with a good 7,900 tons or 1.8 percent.
Last year, a total of 21 percent more pasta was imported than ten years before. “Imports were always significantly higher than exports,” said the statisticians. In 2023, Germany exported 95,900 tons of pasta worth 162.0 million euros. Within ten years, the quantity exported has more than doubled (+122.5 percent). The most important buyers of pasta “Made in Germany” were neighboring France with 27 percent, the United Kingdom with 14.8 percent and Poland with 8.8 percent.
“In addition, significantly more pasta is imported into Germany than is produced here,” the statisticians found. Last year, a good 291,500 tons of pasta and similar pasta were produced in the Federal Republic. That was 6.5 percent more than ten years earlier. “The increase in domestic production is primarily due to the trend towards vegan products,” it said.
In 2023, for the first time, more pasta without eggs (147,600 tons) was produced in this country than those containing eggs (143,900 tons). While the production of egg-free pasta has more than doubled within ten years (+105.6 percent), pasta containing eggs such as spaetzle fell by a good quarter (-28.8 percent).