Sunny & Luna: From Modelling on 800 Calories a Day to Building a Pasta Brand That Celebrates Food.

The ex-model who turned an exploding kitchen of cauliflower into the pasta brand. Protect your family with life insurance from Ethos. Get up to $3 million in coverage in as little as 10 minutes at https://ethos.com/founded. Application times may vary. Rates may vary.

"My husband was just like, 'What's happening?' The kitchen was just an explosion of cauliflower."

That's how Sunny & Luna started, and this episode opens with it.

Giulia Berretti spent her teens modelling in New York on as little as 800 calories a day, inside an industry that treated food as the enemy. The daughter of a winemaker and a restaurateur, taught to make pasta by her nonna, she walked away. When COVID hit, she rebuilt her relationship with food into a business: vegetable-packed fresh pasta, born in her own kitchen.

She sold her first batches to neighbours on Nextdoor, pitched at the Bread & Jam festival with four gnocchi in a plastic bag, and Whole Foods and Planet Organic loved it. She then spent six months knocking on the doors of Italian manufacturers who kept asking "who are you?" until one said yes. When we recorded this conversation, Giulia was days from her first national listing and closing a £500K angel round. Today, Sunny & Luna is on the shelves of Sainsbury's, Ocado, Whole Foods and Planet Organic. Proof that everything she talks about in this episode worked.

3 KEY TAKEAWAYS

1. Never compromise on your non-negotiables. When the Ukraine war sent costs spiralling, Giulia held her quality line and raised prices instead of cutting corners, and customers rewarded her for it. Know what you won't trade, and price accordingly.

2. Passion plus authenticity beats playbooks. She built a standout brand in a category nobody had disrupted (fresh pasta) by staying close to what she genuinely knows and loves. Innovation came from her story, not from copying someone else's.

3. Persistence needs patience. "When the train is coming, you don't have to jump straight away." Ups and downs are the job. The founders who make it are the ones who keep going without rushing decisions that compromise the long-term vision.

WHAT WE COVER

- Modelling in New York at 18: the money, the pressure, and restricting to 800 calories a day

- Nonna's kitchen: the pasta-making childhood that became the business

- Testing demand on Nextdoor, and pitching retailers with a plastic bag of gnocchi

- Six months driving around Italy to find a manufacturer, and selling them the dream

- Why she'd never compromise on quality, even when costs exploded

- Two days of maternity leave, pitching Ocado ten days after giving birth, and the lesson in slowing down

- "A company fails when the founder is tired": mental health, therapy, and switching off

- Funding: bootstrapped on modelling savings, then a £500K round from angels who back her

- The future of food: real ingredients over fake meat, and Sunny & Luna as a lifestyle brand

- Why the business is named after her cats

💬 Giulia has a question for you. See the pinned comment and tell us your favourite.

Guest: Giulia Berretti

Sunny & Luna: https://sunnyandluna.co.uk | Instagram: @sunnyandlunaeats

Hosted by Ollie Tiramuragan Collard and Dr. Becky Sage.

🎧 New episodes every fortnight. Search "Founded and Grounded" on your favourite player.

👍 If you got value, leave us a review on Apple Podcasts. It genuinely helps the show grow.

#FoundedAndGrounded #StartupPodcast #Entrepreneurship #FoodStartup #FemaleFounder

Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.