This journalist needs a journalist friend to help cover his story.
The point of the article is in the writing more than the actual subject matter.
That's around €3.60/kg, which is considered in Italy a quick way to get street riots. Go over €4/kg and you'll get a full blown revolution, complete with a fully functional guillotine.
In my local supermarket 500g of bucatini De Cecco come for €.99, which is around $1.22. I understand that pasta in considered a specialty on the other side of the pond, but it is still basically just (semolina) flour and water, and no matter how fancy it could be, it's outrageous to pay that much for something mass produced.
There were many better prices available, but I was just sanity checking the author who wrote lots and lots making it sound like her favorite pasta was unavailable. So I want trying to find an optimal prices just trying to see if it’s actually unavailable (it isn’t).
At my local market pasta is usually $.7-1/pound. And if I go to specialty markets or Whole Foods the price can get 2-5x higher.