Pietro Ferrero

"In times when Italians have little money in their pockets, a kilogram of Pasta Gianduja is on sale for six hundred lire compared to the three thousand lire for a kilogram of chocolate. Pietro Ferrero has succeeded in his venture, giving substance to the idea that he has cultivated for years and pursued with determination: to take away from the pastry shop the reputation of being elite, reserved only for the rich or for major festivities. There needed to be a sweet treat for everyone, pleasing to every palate and within everyone's reach: it is the Pasta Gianduja, the fruit of research and patient trials, and the use of machines like that enchanted machine gun, shown by the young Michele to Beppe Fenoglio."

"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."

"The most authentic account of that invention comes years later from Michele, already a successful industrialist, in a beautiful interview given to Alfredo Pigna of the Domenica del Corriere, where his father's invention cream is called 'pastone'. "Do you know what pastone is? Some call it the chocolate of the poor, but I would say it's the sweet of the humble... My father Pietro invented pastone, a kind of gianduiotto, which was very good and inexpensive. My father and also my uncle Giovanni, who was his partner, thought that our best customers, customers for a sweet, would become those thousands of workers, bricklayers, carpenters, farmers who at breakfast time used to buy some tomatoes and a bit of cheese to put in the middle of a loaf of bread. And if – my father and uncle thought – we give them the opportunity to have a snack with a sweet that costs the same, or even less than what they bought before? They were right. It was an overwhelming success that we still cannot fully understand today. On that pastone, Ferrero was born."

"Michele dedicates to them a new, joyful idea: the Children's Train, which he had seen in an equestrian circus in Montpellier, and which reminded him of the sugar train displayed by his father Pietro in the window, the one that had enchanted and tempted the small children of Dogliani in 1923. The goal is to give them wonder, fun, and sweets. Thus, this truck, shaped like a train and almost eleven meters long, appears punctually on the occasion of parties and carnivals, fairs, and other events, and distributes each time tons of candies and chocolates, pencils, and markers. The idea has an exceptional appeal. For many children, traveling by train is a dream, and just seeing it pass by is an event. In many countries, the railway doesn't even pass through. "It was a celebration to see the little ones chasing us without ever giving up; they seemed to fly they were so happy," recalls Vittorio Novello, who drove it from 1963 to 1968. "We would leave from the Aosta Valley and arrive in Piazza San Marco in Venice and down to Sicily. I would go home from time to time, but I couldn't wait to leave again with the little train to travel through cities and make other children happy. We even did two Tours of Italy in 1967 and 1968 with Eddy Merckx, Felice Gimondi, and Franco Bitossi. It was unforgettable; we were always surrounded by young people who asked us for the famous mou candies. They were soft, likable, and chewable. I can say that I made a good part of Italy happy with that contraption.""

"In Alba and the Langhe there is still nothing. Imagine chocolate, which costs about three thousand lire per kilo at the time: a real luxury. Pietro Ferrero understands that at this moment his old idea of making chocolate popular is even more important: to increase production, he must create specialties at much lower prices."

"In short, Pietro Ferrero belongs to the category of individuals that Benedetto Croce defines as those who know how to 'turn difficulty into a stool, necessity into virtue'."