Chefs become brands and their products are now a must (also for turnover)

But let us come to the best sellers. "Da Vittorio was one of the first starred restaurants to venture into the production and sale of own-brand products. With the passing of time, the offer has expanded considerably: the list has grown from a few initial products to the more than 220 currently available, divided between leavened products, chocolate, pastries, cold meats, cheeses, jams, pickles and many other specialities. Among the most popular products of the Da Vittorio Selection line are certainly the large leavened products, such as panettone and colomba,' continues Rossella Cerea. 'We are talking about over 70 thousand pieces produced per year that fly all over the world, from the United States to the Arab Emirates.

Alongside leavened products, the chocolate segment is also growing strongly, 'particularly that of customised products,' continues Rossella Cerea. 'More and more brands, in fact, are asking us to develop customised creations that are able to tell the identity of their brand, while maintaining the artisan quality and gastronomic know-how of Da Vittorio.

An asset on which the brand will focus more and more in the immediate future. "Da Vittorio Selection today represents an increasingly strategic division, because it allows the Da Vittorio brand to be carried outside the restaurant experience," underlines Cerea. "In addition to the direct channel, the products are increasingly present in special projects, collaborations and corporate initiatives. This contributes not only to turnover, but above all to the diffusion and strengthening of the Da Vittorio brand in contexts other than the restaurant.

"Experience" is one of the keywords of Luxury Food: the pleasant experience that creates an indelible memory enables customer loyalty, inviting them to follow the brand's evolutions and new proposals step by step.

Antonino Cannavacciuolo is a chef-star. Thanks to TV programmes such as Cucine da Incubo and Masterchef Italia, he is one of the most loved faces on TV with an Instagram profile of 3.2 million followers. But don't forget the three stars awarded by the Michelin Guide for his restaurant Villa Crespi.

The online shop of the Cannavacciuolo brand has150 references, including seasonal products (Christmas, Easter, minor holidays). One of the best sellers is the Vesuvio alla pizzaiola: 3 thousand pieces sold out of the 8 thousand pieces of jarred specialities. It is a leavened dish inspired by Neapolitan pizza, with sun-dried tomatoes, olives, Grana Padano Dop, basil and oregano. Then there are the Babas in vasocottura, ranging from lemon caprese to Neapolitan Pastiera, and even mistletoe cheesecake.

Decisive numbers for the Christmas holidays with a record 35 thousand panettone cakes produced and sold each year. As is always the case, Easter production is lower, with around 10 thousand doves sold, in various flavours. Christmas, it is known, is the holiday that drives sales of branded products like no other.

Growing for the Cannavacciuolo brand are also the numbers of chocolates, appreciated for a daily pampering or as gifts. These range from bars to filled pralines, from dragées to vegan pralines to meet every dietary requirement.

Distribution takes place in the physical sales outlets of "Antonino il Banco" (Orta San Giulio, Vicolungo Outlet, Milan Malpensa and Naples Capodichino airports), in various selected retail and concept stores, to include Eataly and Rinascente. The incidence of branded products onthe Group's total turnover is about 10%.

"These products are a way of bringing an idea of good cooking into people's homes,' explains the chef. I have always believed that quality should not only remain in restaurants. It must also be able to arrive in everyday life, without losing its identity. That is why we work on a few products, made with love and attention to detail, that can travel well and arrive as intact as possible. We do not seek complexity, but essence: recognisable flavours, clean executions, products that improve over time and that are born to be shared. The way they arrive is also part of the project. It is not just a product that is shipped, but a moment to be experienced and shared at home. Social media thus become a tool for telling a direct and authentic story of what we do every day. It is a job that I feel is very much my own, because it represents exactly the way I see cooking: concrete, sincere, tasteful and made for people".

Gli chef Negrini e Pisani del Gruppo Aimo e Nadia co la loro linea di prodotti

In recent years, the Aimo and Nadia Group has also started to develop a line of branded gastronomic products - "La Selezione" - with the aim of bringing the values of its cuisine outside the restaurant: quality of Made in Italy raw materials, attention to the supply chain and a link with the territories. Today the project includes dispensary products, gastronomic boxes and large seasonal leavened goods, distributed through various channels: group restaurants, e-commerce, selected delicatessens and the corporate market. All in all, the line accounts for about 12.5% of total turnover, with steady growth in recent years.

Among the most popular products of the Aimo e Nadia selection are some pantry items, in particular the Fiaschetto tomato puree from Torre Guaceto, over 2,000 pieces sold in 2025 and sold out. Also very popular are the gastronomic boxes, often chosen as gifts or experiential proposals, such as the "inDISPENSAbili", gourmet pasta kits with extra virgin olive oil from Coratina olives, taralli pugliesi, Vermicelloni and tomato puree. Identical, since the brand is Milanese, is the kit "Omaggio a Milano", which allows you to prepare a gourmet risotto with saffron and Parmigiano Reggiano at home.

Big leavened goods remain central, with panettone at Christmas time and handmade colomba at Easter: in total, production exceeds 25,000 pieces at the two pivotal moments of the year.

In the last three years, the project has been enriched by co-branding with Etro, a Milanese fashion brand, for which special editions of panettone and colomba are designed, protected by a designer tin box, decorated and of particular beauty.

"The products are a way of bringing the work we do every day in the kitchen into people's homes," explain star chefs Alessandro Negrini and Fabio Pisani. "They tell of our deep relationship with raw materials and with the Italian territories."

Three Michelin stars and a group with a strong identity that has more than 13 establishments worldwide. "The Alajmo Food line was born over twenty years ago," explain owners Massimiliano and Raffaele Alajmo. "Each product, whether made directly by us or in collaboration with producer friends, is a concrete expression of our gastronomic vision, rooted in the In.gredienti concept. A vision based on listening and penetrating the raw material, understood in both its physical and spiritual side. We put the same care into the selection as we do into the experience in each of our restaurants, and the goal is hospitality that goes beyond the threshold of the restaurant. In the beginning it was biscuits and jams. Over time, the line has been enriched to the point of toccurring in the pillars of Le Calandre cuisine - bread, oil, tomato, dry pasta - and pushing into unexpected territories such as the Essenze, essential oils born from the collaboration with a Master perfumer. To keep up with increasingly ambitious production, we transformed our pastry laboratory into Mamma Rita Lab: a facility dedicated to production, research and development, not far from the main restaurant. Parallel to the world of food, Alajmo Design was born: a collection of objects for the table and home. Behind each piece is the hand of small Italian artisans, chosen with the same attention we pay to ingredients, united by a shared vision of authenticity, elegance and quality'.

Among the most popular pieces are the glasses, namelythe 'Impronta' water glasses, which bear the chef's fingerprints engraved on them, and the wine glasses Max (the flûte) and Raf (the balloon), whose name, with a hint of irony, refers to the silhouettes of the two brothers.

"The products entered our premises right from the start, then found a home in Dispensa Alajmo, headquartered in Rubano, literally across the street from Le Calandre. We then opened a Temporary Shop in the centre of Padua, and finally an online shop. The next step is B2B, a market we are beginning to explore with conviction. Today, the product line is worth a couple of million euro in sales. Driving sales also in this xase is the leavened goods line: 'They are our real best sellers: we produce everything in house, at MammaRita Lab, with about 15 thousand pieces per year. And in the coming years we aim to double that,' conclude the Alajmo family.

Carlo Cracco is another example of a brand chef: catering is part of a complex path that has led him to become a beloved face on television, from Masterchef to Dinner Club, a programme in which the chef explores the potential of territories with personalities from the world of entertainment. The flagship remains Cracco in the Galleria: five floors in Milan's Galleria Vittorio Emanuele that unite a café with bistrot, a restaurant, a wine cellar and a salon for events under the same roof. The shop has more than 60 references divided into festive leavened goods, baked goods, chocolate, bottega, wines and spirits, sweet and savoury boxes. The e-commerce was launched in winter 2019, to become crucial for online sales in the covid phase. Today, the business is worth just under 10% of the group's overall turnover and is growing.

"The largest incidence is at Christmas and Easter, with more than 5,000 pieces of panettone, including classic, chocolate and pistachio, and around 4,000 pieces for colomba," explain chef Carlo Cracco and Group manager Alessandro Ruggle. "These are handcrafted products created with care directly by the pastry chefs in our laboratory in the Galleria in Milan. The online shop also stimulates our creativity: in order to populate it with new products and create interest in our customers, we have also created the 'Panciliegia' and the 'Panmugnaga' with apricots to offer new seasonal products throughout the year and create continuity. The best sellers remain the 'Baci di Cracco', Italian-style macaroons with fillings in 6 different flavours, with a total of around 5,000 packs per year.

"The distilled spirits, available in our online shop and thanks to Ghilardi distribution throughout Italia, are giving us satisfaction. They include herbal white bitter, aromatic, gin and limoncello. The latest is Vermouth from wines from the Rosa Fanti winery in Santarcangelo di Romagna in the Rimini hills. We produce about 5 thousand bottles and the demand is growing year by year'.