The history of this Panettone smells sweet and began in 1929, when Ermenegildo Maggiora entered his workshop in Refrancore and immediately set to work, baking Finocchini in wood-fired ovens at night and selling them in neighbouring villages during the day with his motorised cart. In short, his biscuits became famous not only in Monferrato, but throughout Italy, thanks to a vision that was pioneering and industrial for its time. In 1939, Ermenegildo felt that the time had come to take the plunge and moved to a factory in Collegno, just outside Turin. It was after the war that the Maggiora brand, “the home of famous packaged biscuits”, became familiar to Italians, with Finocchini biscuits, Gran Dorato shortbread, wafers, panettone and Toujours sweets. This success is due to the strategy of offering quality products at affordable prices and cutting-edge advertising. Maggiora becomes a regular feature of Carosello evenings. This communication involved great artists of the time: Bruno Bozzetto and Pino Pascali for the cartoons, Giovanni Arpino for the scripts, and the faces of Marisa Sannia and Aba Cercato. Giuseppe Maggiora, son of the founder Ermenegildo, together with his brothers, was the architect of these communication activities that made the brand famous throughout Italy. Meanwhile, Elena, wife of Giuseppe Maggiora, Cordon Bleu chef and Italian cooking teacher, opened the first culinary arts school in Piedmont in 1973, in one of the Biscottificio’s workshops. She was soon joined by her daughter Erica, who had been breathing in the aromas of baking and biscuits since she was a child, continuing the vocation for taste inherent in her surname, becoming a Cordon Bleu chef and Italian cooking teacher in her own right. It was Erica, together with her daughters, who wanted to continue this tradition of taste.
