North Dakota Sisters Bring Better-For-You Pasta to Stores Nationwide
When North Dakota natives Mollie Ficocello and her sisters returned to their family’s Grand Forks-area farm, they helped introduce a new protein- and fiber-packed wheat variety into the farm’s crop rotation — and saw an opportunity to use it to create a better-for-you pasta that delivered the taste and texture of traditional noodles. In 2020, they launched a pasta business, Three Farm Daughters, experimenting with small batches of extra-nutritious pasta that they sold at local shops and online.
Their pasta was a hit, and the business quickly expanded. Today, the five-employee company sells its pasta through a variety of channels, including its own website, Amazon, and national retailers like Whole Foods and Target. Three Farm Daughters also sells its pasta to universities, restaurants, and prepared-meal companies around the United States.
Digital tools have played a critical role in propelling Three Farm Daughters from North Dakota startup to national brand. The company uses Instacart ads to reach customers while they’re actively shopping for groceries, leverages Google’s AI-powered Performance Max system to connect with customers across channels, and builds brand awareness through data-powered digital ads and content on Meta, Google, and, increasingly, TikTok.
Mollie is a vocal advocate for smart digital policies that help small businesses grow and succeed, participating in discussions with lawmakers about digital advertising and data privacy, and explaining how policy decisions affect companies that rely on online tools. She says navigating a patchwork of state-level privacy rules can be especially difficult for small teams like hers. “Before we expanded online, I didn’t fully understand just how much privacy laws vary from state to state,” she says. “Once we started selling nationwide, keeping up with different state privacy rules became a real compliance challenge.”
Learn more about Mollie and her sisters’ healthy-pasta journey at https://3farmdaughters.com/.
