3 Farm Daughters Review: Is High-Fiber Pasta Legit?

Welcome to our 3 Farm Daughters review!

While the healthy pasta alternative space continues to expand beyond wheat into lentils, chickpeas, regular peas, and more, 3 Farm Daughters has found a way to stick to the classic ingredients while still ratcheting up fiber and protein content.

With as few as two ingredients, these high-fiber, bronze-cut pastas hailing from a family farm in North Dakota rely on a special kind of wheat—and nothing else—to confer these nutritional advantages over standard store-bought noodles.

After sampling the pasta ourselves at Natural Products Expo West, we committed to a full brand review, including an interview with the daughters themselves, plenty of poking around the website, and more.

In the end, 3 Farm Daughters earned an overall rating of A- for excellent product quality, nutritional benefits over standard pasta, and more, with room for improvement in brand value and a few of the finer points (see below).

Here’s everything we learned about 3 Farm Daughters.

3 Farm Daughters Pros and Cons

3 Farm Daughters History

The 3 Farm Daughters Expo West booth was sans two of the daughters for some very exciting reasons (congrats on the little ones!), but in a later interview, we got to sit down with founders Annie, Mollie, and Grace, who regaled us with the brand’s backstory.

The brand was born on their family farm in Grand Forks, North Dakota, where they still operate out of today (in addition to off-site mills and a pasta company).

“We all ventured off the farm and moved back home after time,” they explained, adding that the farm was already growing naturally high-fiber wheat that they wanted to share with the world.

So, they “Did a quick logo, made a small batch, and wanted to get consumer feedback,” referring to an early iteration of their high-fiber pasta.

Sure enough, positive feedback and resulting sales soon springboarded the sisters into partnerships with 38 different retailers, and before long, they decided to rebrand in order to position themselves for additional high-profile opportunities

And with a bit more grinding, more opportunities came, including a clutch partnership with Whole Foods.

These milestones helped to solidify the early success of 3 Farm Daughters, which has continued to “grow” until today. Puns.

Our 3 Farm Daughters Review

We use six major criteria when reviewing brand, including the following (3 Farm Daughters scores included):

• Quality (A-)
• Transparency (A-)
• Website Experience (A)
• Customer Service (A-)
• Value (A)
• Brand Value (B+)

3 Farm Daughters earns an overall rating of A- in our review.

Key strengths include the highly practical use case (standing in for standard pasta with a healthier option that actually tastes good), an excellent website experience, and competitive pricing for the quality. Areas of improvement include a bit more work on the brand value side (see below) and some transparency improvements.

Without further ado, let’s get started! Quality first, as always. 

Quality

Starting with the packaging, 3 Farm Daughters pastas come in your standard 12-oz box—nothing you haven’t seen before.

The label design, however, is attractive in its subtle aesthetic, and informative.

We’re talking about two ingredients here, so we didn’t expect reams of information, but using our box of 3 Farm Daughters Elbow Macaroni as an example, we found the following information on the box:

• Fiber per serving content (9g)
• “USA Farm Grown” seal
• Standard specs (nutrition facts, ingredients, allergen warning, etc.)
• A nice blurb on the brand
• “High fiber, clean label, farmer owned, delicious taste & texture” statements
• Non-GMO Project Verified and Kosher seals
• Usage instructions

Overall, the packaging is consistent with what we’ve come to expect from premium brands, including no damage on arrival and no issues opening or using the box.

As for the ingredients themselves, here are the two listed on the Elbow Macaroni product: Wheat Flour, Semolina (Wheat).

While we understand this is not intended to be some superfood health product, on the other hand, it does feel like a lost opportunity not have organic wheat. 

However, the product is non-GMO and Kosher, and of course, there are no sketchy additives, preservatives, or sweeteners to worry about. 

We also don’t want to downplay the importance of the high fiber content, and importantly, “the daughters” told us that the amylose and amylopectin content of their wheat is opposite of the normal, resulting in a lower-glycemic-index product.

If that was Greek to you, here’s what that means: the composition of the two forms of starch present in 3 Farm Daughters’ wheat is 70% amylose and 30% amylopectin, where “standard” wheat contains about 30% amylose and 70% amylopectin. 

The first starch profile—unique to 3 Farm Daughters’ wheat—was classified as “low GI” after testing, meaning that it elicits a less intense spike in blood sugar than standard pasta. 

Additionally, the fiber in 3 Farm Daughters pasta is prebiotic fiber, helping your gut microbiome to operate more efficiently (aiding metabolism, immunity, bathroom time, and much more). 

Shifting to back-end factors (manufacturing, supply chain, etc.), we learned that 3 Farm Daughters sources some, but not all of their ingredients from their own farm. 

They partner with mills in Minnesota and North Dakota for processing, as well as a pasta company in North Dakota to finish the products. The entire outfit operates within the USA.
Overall, we formed a positive impression of the 3 Farm Daughters commitment to quality on both the consumer-facing and back-end side of the business, with our only major gripe relating to the non-organic status. This brings us to an A- for quality.

3 Farm Daughters Product Catalog

The 3 Farm Daughters product selection is bifurcated into two simple categories: pasta and merch.

Pastas

3 Farm Daughters offers four varieties of their high-fiber pasta, including Elbow, Cavatappi, Penne, and Rotini. 

All four varieties contain 9 grams of fiber per serving, and are made with two ingredients.

On the website, you can order either a 4-pack or an 8-pack of each.

You can also order a sampler from their website, which provides one of each box.

Merch

We normally don’t pay much attention to merch, given our role as health food and supplement reviewers, but the 3 Farm Daughters logo is pretty legit, so here’s a shoutout.

Their merch selection provides a pretty well-rounded hodgepodge of charcuterie boards, totes, stickers, tee shirts (“Here’s to Farmer Tans”), recipe binders, aprons, and more.

Most of this swag is definitely on the pricey side, as merch tends to be, but hey—it’s pretty cool.

Transparency

To reiterate, we weren’t looking for doctorate-level theses on the chemistry of high-fiber pasta here, but regardless of how simple the product is, consumers still need to know who you are, what you make, and how you make it in order to trust you.

Between the packaging and the website, 3 Farm Daughters covers product information fairly convincingly. You’ve got all the certifications, ingredient info, and other details (bronze cut, etc.) on either the box and/or the appropriate product page.

The About page provides a very in-depth profile of the company, the daughters, and their parents, complete with pictures and plenty of exposition on the brand story. It’s very clear upon even an initial skimming that this is a family-oriented brand through and through.

The pathway to sourcing information is a bit circuitous, requiring you to click off the about page to a completely separate site via a link towards the bottom that reads “Check out our family farm at SprouleFarms.com.” To be fair, the obvious implication on the 3 Farm Daughters site is that it’s a homegrown operation, but if you want to get more into the details, you still have to leave the site. 

Finally, the fine print stuff—shipping and return policies, terms, etc.—is easily accessible through appropriately labeled footer links, so no issues there.

Overall, 3 Farm Daughters does well to give their customers easy access to all the major transparency factors we look for, but with one or two opportunities to bring things a bit closer to center stage. This brings us to an A- for transparency.

Website Experience

For our purposes, we prioritize functionality and educational value over aesthetic when reviewing website experience, but 3 Farm Daughters delivers both.

It’s very easy to shop all of the pastas on the website, which is a must when you have 4 SKUs. You can preview each pasta by hovering over the shop link from the homepage, or click on the link to get the standard category page with product images, add to cart buttons, and so forth.

Each product page is practically designed and informative, and the add-to-cart/checkout processes are simple. One feature that stood out was the small banner at the site header that updates with your progress toward free shipping (“only $X away!”) as you add items to your cart.

As for educational resources, 3 Farm Daughters has a blog that they actually keep up, plenty of foundational info on the about page, and as mentioned, informative product pages.

Normally, we look for some kind of “X 101” page relating to the technical side of a brand’s offerings, but considering the nature of these products, we just wanted a clear explanation of how it’s different from standard pasta, which 3 Farm Daughters provided.

Finally, the site displayed and functioned just as effectively on mobile devices as on desktop, with no wonky formatting errors, misaligned elements, etc. 

Overall, 3 Farm Daughters provides a welcoming, practical, and informative website experience consistent with that of many of the top brands we’ve reviewed, earning an A.

Customer Service

We prioritize 3 factors here, including the availability of support services, how responsive and accommodating they are, and the flexibility of shipping/return policies. 

3 Farm Daughters provides email customer service only, though the form on their contact us page does contain a field for your phone number, which we’re guessing is for promotional purposes (have yet to receive a text or call).

Though we will ding them a bit for not having phone or messenger support, the email service recoups much of the lost credit by providing a fast (within an hour) and accommodating response to our test question, penned by the middle daughter herself, Mollie Ficocello.

As for shipping and returns or refunds, you can score free shipping on purchases of $45 or more, which is a reasonably low threshold. Shipping is $6.99 otherwise, which is around the middle of the range we’ve seen.

The refund policy is halfway between the more restrictive “unopened products only” stance and a true 100% satisfaction guarantee. 

Basically, 3 Farm Daughters will credit you for defective products (according to their discretion), which leaves room for them to be opened, but doesn’t necessarily guarantee any recourse for people who simply don’t like the taste or texture. 

Overall, no single factor was sorely lacking here, and the response we received was certainly A+ worthy, but smaller areas of improvement across their policies and services bring us to an A- for customer service. 

Value

Whether we’re talking wheat-based or made from chickpeas, lentils, etc., 3 Farm Daughters is certainly not alone in the high-fiber pasta category.

That said, as long as the fiber and protein content came close, we didn’t think it an unfair comparison to measure 3 Farm Daughters’ price points against Banza, ZenB, and other non-wheat-based alternatives.

Speaking of, here is how 3 Farm Daughters fared on price against a few of their (somewhat) similar competitors:

• 3 Farm Daughters: $0.58/oz
• ZenB: $0.56/oz
• GoodWheat: $0.56/oz
• Barilla Chickpea Rotini: $0.34/oz

As expected, 3 Farm Daughters was a solid tier above retail staples like Barilla, but they hang with ZenB and other better-for-you pastas for the most part.

But price isn’t the only component to value; perceived value is largely subjective. 

If you’re a pasta-phile who simply cannot budge off of wheat-based pasta for taste reasons, but you need a healthier alternative with more fiber, 3 Farm Daughters and their bronze-cut pastas may be an absolute A+ in the value department.

On the other hand, if you don’t mind the slightly earthier accent of chickpea or lentil, you can find slightly cheaper options in these areas that rival or outperform 3 Farm Daughters nutritionally.

Balancing these two preferences and factoring people who land in between, we land on an A for value. If you’re going to buy pasta anyway, replacing it with 3 Farm Daughters is only going to run you about an extra $1-1.50 per box or so.

Brand Value

This is where we award credit for the overall impact a brand has made on their industry as well as any outside communities, which can encompass many factors like philanthropy, innovation, industry disruption, and more.

Starting with the obvious, 3 Farm Daughters is helping to elevate the state of public nutrition by replacing an extremely popular, but not-so-healthy product with a more nutritionally balanced option. 

While they aren’t the only ones doing this, the key differentiator here is that they didn’t stray from wheat pasta, which gives the pasta purist a viable alternative.

On the ingredient traceability and sustainability side, Sproule Farms is GLOBALG.A.P. certified on its wheat, corn, sugar, beets, and edible beans.

They also informed us they are in carbon programs, and have implemented sustainability practices throughout several points in production and processing.

Regarding philanthropy, 3 Farm Daughters and Sproule Farms have been hosting a Cans 4 Corn events for over 10 years.

They farm plants and take care of a couple of acres of sweet corn in a plot in the middle of town. In the fall, they invite the city to come out and get free sweet corn in exchange for a donation (canned goods or cash) that goes to the local Salvation Army.

The sisters have been managing the event since its inception and 3 Farm Daughters officially sponsored the event last year.

In 2022, over 5,000 canned items were collected and nearly $14K was raised.

Overall, 3 Farm Daughters shows a clear commitment to using clean, traceable ingredients in their pastas in a sustainable way, and giving back to its community.

Taking strengths and weaknesses into account here, we land on a A- for brand value.

Our 3 Farm Daughters Experience

Between Natural Products Expo West and a later round of sampling, our team was able to try all four products from 3 Farm Daughters, which includes:

• Cavatappi Pasta
• Elbow Pasta
• Penne Pasta
• Rotini Pasta

Were we hardcore pasta experts, we could get into the finer points about how each shape absorbs the sauce differently, but for practicality’s sake, we can easily lump these products together because of how much their taste, texture, and other attributes overlapped.

Bronze cut pasta really does “hit different,” as the young’uns say, as the slightly rougher texture (zoom in on a bronze-cut noodle and you’ll see) resulting from this more traditional pasta-making practice results in more surface area for sauce absorption. 

Indeed, 3 Farm Daughters pastas seemed less apt to simply wick off the sauce and leave it in a puddle at the bottom of the bowl, a problem associated with many store-bought varieties that take on a slimy texture after cooking.

Even olive oil seemed to really soak in, making for a deliciously flavorful experience. Speaking of, there was extremely little difference in flavor, if any, between this pasta and the vast majority of middle- or top-of-the-line varieties we’ve all tried.

It was just your standard, tasty pasta as far as taste is concerned.

Texture, however, was a different animal. Both at the expo and in our later round of sampling, we noticed that even cooking for a bit longer still yielded an al dente (and then some) level of firmness, which the 3 Farm Daughters team is clear about in their messaging. Considering the higher fiber content, this makes sense. 

When we asked the daughters how or if they would recommend folks to cook their products any differently than standard pasta, they said to simply cook it a bit longer according to preference, but keeping everything standard—boil the water, a pinch or two of salt, etc.

On another note, 3 Farm Daughters makes for excellent, murky pasta water, and though we haven’t tried them as leftovers yet, the claim is that they hold up much better than other noodles, which usually make for squishy and/or soggy leftovers.

Our personal experience with 3 Farm Daughters products was an overwhelmingly positive one, with the only caveat being that people who prefer a softer pasta might have to wait a good while longer in the cooking process to get there.

3 Farm Daughters FAQ

Final Thoughts

3 Farm Daughters is a family-based pasta brand that offers high-fiber, high-ish-protein, and lower-calorie pasta that still comes from wheat.

After meeting with the team, sampling the products ourselves, and reviewing everything from their website to their packaging, we found 3 Farm Daughters to be a quality-focused and transparent company. 

The products contain just two ingredients, and the price hangs with most premium pasta brands.

While they could stand to tighten up a few points in customer service and other aspects, the 3 Farm Daughters team makes a concerted effort to share key insights with their customers and engage with them authentically.

We concluded after our taste tests of the products that 3 Farm Daughters pastas differ very little in taste from the traditional wheat pastas we all know, though the texture is definitively firmer.

We recommend 3 Farm Daughters to any al dente pasta fan looking to make a healthier swap that doesn’t stray from that classic pasta taste.