Piera

"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."

"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."

"Very much loved by the workforce (eight thousand accompany her on her last earthly journey), always at the center of the company's activities, since the beginning Piera took care of the administration of the company and the entire organizational part, continuing to live in the house inside the factory, in a modest apartment of an equally modest building, which it was rightly decided to preserve."