Giovanni

"In the early 1926, Pietro and Piera are in Alba, where they open a pastry shop on the corner of Vittorio Emanuele street and Pierino Belli street. The connection with Dogliani remains strong and every summer, once school is over, young Michele spends the holidays with mother Piera at his grandparents' and uncles' farm, which includes a hazel grove and a vineyard of their own, in the small district of Pianezzo, four kilometers from the main town. Years later, with his uncle Giovanni, he also goes up to Viaiano, to take part in the grape festivals or to drive some new tractor. The bond between the two brothers, Pietro and Giovanni, and their hometown will remain strong as long as they are alive: in 1956, for example, on the occasion of the Melbourne Olympics, Giovanni will present the community with one of the first televisions, an Olympic Channel set in a wooden cabinet, which will allow the locals to watch the programs of the newly-born Rai and the Olympic competitions which will see the Italians triumph in fencing, rowing, cycling."

"At this point, however, something unexpected happens. From that isolated factory, impossible to reach for rescue teams, the workers do not want to leave. Many of them rush from their homes despite the threats. And together with Pietro and Giovanni, they start shoveling the mud to save the valuable machinery. The two brothers devote themselves to working with the workers non-stop for four days and four nights. "Fieui, fomie vedde noiaotri," let's show them, Mr. Pietro encourages everyone in Piedmontese dialect. "Let's get to work without waiting for help that might never come... I can almost hear the competition: look, Ferrero is down! We have to show that we are not down. Let's also get down to work. We have to pick up the company and bring it back to life, better and stronger than before." They keep the three daily eight-hour shifts, as during normal production. But some teams work up to sixteen hours straight, amidst imaginable discomforts: eating bread and salami in the morning and also in the evening, and drinking a glass of wine. A proof of self-denial and dedication that rewards the Ferrero family for so much bitterness."

"How was Pasta Gianduja born? It was the beginning of 1946, a year of restart for Italy, with the reinstatement of journalists purified by fascism, the return of the Corriere della Sera to newsstands, and the resumption of radio broadcasts across the national territory, and the institutional referendum between the monarchy and the winning Republic. One day Giovanni, who had just returned from a trip to Turin, came to the laboratory and suggested to Pietro to experiment with something using molasses extracted from sugar beets. Pietro Ferrero starts with a panello, which is a solid residue of hazelnuts, obtained by extracting the oil; uses coconut butter, because cocoa butter was too expensive and difficult to find; and adds lean cocoa powder, sugar or molasses, and obtains a semi-solid mixture which he pours into rectangular molds, obtaining loaves that can be sliced. He submits his discovery to his wife and son, receiving their approval. Why the name Pasta Gianduja? Because the taste of the mixture prepared by Pietro Ferrero reminds of the gianduiotti that Turin pastry chefs had invented at the beginning of the nineteenth century, following the Continental Blockade imposed by Napoleon after the defeat at Trafalgar. The Blockade had led to the disappearance throughout Europe of most of the goods from the colonies, and the Turin craftsmen, to save cacao, mixed it with roasted hazelnuts. The day after finalizing Pasta Gianduja, also known as Giandujot, Giovanni arrives with his famous fire-red Fiat 1100, known throughout the Albese, to collect this new product, approved by the tasters Piera and Michele, and tries to place it with the bakers to whom he supplies yeast."

"It was wartime and sugar was scarce, it was sold on the black market and was very expensive. But my dad, who was a genius, found a way to extract it from molasses, a by-product of beer. He bought a centrifuge and obtained seven percent of sugar crystals from that molasses. And with that sugar and a bit of thick hazelnut paste, he invented "Pasta Gianduja," which my uncle Giovanni, who was a wholesaler who knew how to trade, began to sell throughout the Langhe. For a long time, people were short of everything, and this product smelled of hazelnuts. When the war ended, my father began to wonder why I had never been there."

"Giovanni. "Sow wisely," he repeats, "be aware that many seeds go outside of the right soil, others are eaten by magpies... those that go into the right meadow, in the fertile humus, must be cared for, made to grow well, with slow and careful development. The slowness will ensure the quality of the fruits.""

"Michele wants the Social Works to be named after his parents and Uncle Giovanni because – as Plutarch claimed – 'this is what we mortals have that is immortal: the memory we leave behind, the memory we renew.' And he sets two goals: to take care of, in a sign of gratitude, the retired Ferrero employees, promoting an active, supportive, and creative concept of aging, and to realize cultural and artistic initiatives offered to the entire community, under the motto "Work, create, give.""