The bread factory was born out of a collaboration with Roy Cascino. I met Roy via the former owner of Shanghai Casanova, Paolo Velini, who sadly passed away few years ago. Paolo already knew the Pizza Cresciuta, the traditional Easter cake that we produced at our bakery in Italy. He was a big fan of it and each year bought some from us, even before we met. Paolo put me in touch with Roy, who in 2008 was managing the Hohensaufen, a food company dealing with typical Sicilian products.
I presented a proposal to Roy to transform the company into an artisanal factory to produce traditional Italian bread and patisserie, he accepted the idea and the story begun. The ambitious goal was to produce a Christmas panettone directly in China. Nobody had done it before, it wasn’t going to be easy but, fast forward few years later, it was all worthy it: the bread factory today is a strong to artisanal presence which employs around thirty people. After the initial years, when we supplied with our products the numerous Italian companies in China, the factory is today is a supplier also for many Chinese ice-cream parlours and patisseries.