THE multi-million dollar Italian American Pasta Company has chosen York for a new European sales and marketing office, it was announced today.

IAPC's commercial director Nigel Singh has moved into an office at Tower Court Business Centre on Clifton Moor, steered there by the York Inward Investment Board.

Initially the office will be manned by him and administrative assistant Andrea Wilkinson but he anticipates having a staff of about ten within a year.

The Kansas City-based company is recognised as the world's largest and most efficient manufacturer of dry pasta, its business growing fourfold over the last decade. It has also been listed for two consecutive years in Forbes' "Best 200 Small Companies" in the US.

IAPC manufactures its products in a $45 million, high-tech facility in Verolanuova, south-east of Milan.

Already, the company supplies pasta to a significant number of major recognised household brand-names in the UK and is expanding its coverage of the European Market.