Sourcing our Gianduiotto from Boella & Sorrisi in Turin – The Long Story
- Gabriel Purdey
- 3 days ago
- 8 min read
During 2013, my plans to set up a chocolate business began to form. I realised university was firmly not for me, and I liked the idea of private business. I am a very impatient person and wanted to see fast results and, at the time, I believed that would come from starting my own company, by the way this is a view I have since modified...
At the time, I worked as a postman in Taunton and lived in a rented room just a short walk from the sorting office. I had no contacts whatsoever within the food industry and no qualifications. Simply finding a factory willing to risk development time making a product for me was always going to be an uphill task. Even finding factories is surprisingly difficult if you don’t know anyone. Try Googling it yourself, most factories don’t work too hard on their Google rankings. However, with the kamikaze approach of youth, I felt I had nothing to lose.
I spoke to quite a few factories in the UK, including a promising one in Cheddar, but the upfront sums involved were simply far too much for me or I had to have already calculated recipes and formulas, something I couldn’t do without a factory. At best, I had around £2,000 saved from my job and most people politely explained that I needed to add a zero if I wanted to do it cheaply.
Turning to the continent
I found the website Alibaba, which I had previously used to import wooden pens from China while I was a student at college to help pay for driving lessons. I turned to it again to look for chocolate manufacturers. However, I knew I would need to visit the factory, so I restricted the search to Europe and found several suitable options in Spain, Italy, and Germany.
By far the best option was a small company from Turin called Gusti d’Italia. They partnered with artisan producers in the Piedmont region and sold their products abroad. One of the companies they worked with was a medium-sized chocolate factory called Boella & Sorrisi.
Developing the chocolate bars
Simone Debernardi, the founder, responded very quickly and immediately showed the flexibility I was looking for. He said we could put almost any topping I wanted onto a chocolate bar, and gave us a range of chocolates to work with. He really gave me a chance and took a risk on me, which I remain very grateful for.
Being younger and very inexperienced, I still didn’t fully appreciate the amount of time that goes into product development. After changing the recipe one too many times, this time switching back from brown sugar to stevia as a sweetener, Simone firmly warned me that if I kept changing direction and “deleting ideas”, they would stop the project altogether. This was the firm boundary I needed. He talked about launching something and then moulding things over time to evolve with the market. Whilst this can be suitable at times and less suitable at others, it was the advice I needed to hear.
After pushing hard for them to attach brown paper packaging onto their flow wrapper, they eventually agreed. Following lots of samples being sent back and forth, we finally settled on something. However, they wanted me to come over to Italy and sign everything off in person before the first order went into production.
The Visit to Turin - Home of Gianduiotto Story
This was a huge moment for me because it was really the first time I had travelled anywhere alone. Getting to Turin involved flying from Stansted and, because I wasn’t confident driving on motorways at the time, it added days onto the journey. I’m also not a keen flyer, which added another layer to the trip, but it was booked for early April 2014.
I flew out and Simone had said he would collect me from the airport. Initially he wasn’t there and, for those that know me, they’ll know I’ve never valued phones or technology very much, so I literally had no way of contacting him and was beginning to feel a bit worried stood in an airport in a foreign country with no idea where he was. After 10 minutes or so, he turned up though, and my blushes were spared.
His initial reaction was interesting, to say the least. I don’t remember whether I had told him I was only 21 years old, and I looked even younger, but I suspect he had expected somebody older and more experienced. If he thought that, he hid it well.
As we drove out of the airport, he enthusiastically explained the history of Turin and the surrounding region, telling me why this was the best area in Italy for chocolate. There was definitely a pride and he really impressed on me that whilst most foreigners thought Tuscany was the best region for food in Italy, Piedmont had a lot to offer.
Even though it was still early in the year, it was already quite hot. When we arrived at the factory, which at the time was on the outskirts of the city, I remember the incredibly strong smell of chocolate and hazelnut the moment I stepped inside. It completely filled your nose and smelled exactly how you would imagine a chocolate factory should smell.
I walked up a huge staircase to the second floor and was introduced to the maître chocolatier, Stefano, along with his right-hand man, Mauro. Stefano was incredibly passionate about chocolate and immediately took me on a tour around the factory. Going into the production room, I burst into a huge smile. Up until that point I had tried to remain composed because I knew I needed to make a good impression if I was to be taken seriously. Being younger was still something at the forefront of my mind, but in that moment I realised I wanted to create something amazing with this company, and perhaps one day even have something like this myself.
Stefano talked me through the marble slab in the production room that three generations of chocolatiers had smashed chocolates out of moulds upon. He then took me over to something called a Gianduiotto machine, and watching these tiny chocolate pieces fly through the packaging line was incredible.
What is Gianduiotto?
Gianduiotto is a blend of chocolate and hazelnut. Good quality gianduiotto should contain around 30% hazelnut and, to be considered authentic, the hazelnuts should come from Piedmont. You get a rich, chocolatey flavour but without the same overpowering sweetness. Classic gianduiotto is traditionally made with milk chocolate, although the dark variety is just as popular. The roots go back to the Napoleonic wars of the early 19th century when cocoa was scarce so chocolatiers bulked it out with hazelnut to make it go further.
Despite my complete lack of experience and lack of any contacts, they seemed genuinely touched that I had travelled all the way to them. They enthusiastically talked me through different product ideas that could potentially work well in the UK market. At the time, they had no other UK customers, so I think they genuinely saw it as a major opportunity.
They didn’t quite have the bars ready for final sign-off, but they did convince me that I needed to import Gianduiotto as well.
After all, it is Turin’s speciality and not something to miss.
Selling the First Chocolate Bars
I launched Discover Chocolate online on 3rd June 2014. I had barely slept with excitement the night before, then went off to do my usual postal round in Cotford St Luke, which I tried to complete at record speed just to stay focused. I then returned to my room at 2pm (I didn't break the record) and asked my web designer, Ivan, to make everything live. I shared it to every Facebook group I could and posted hundreds of prepared links across blogs and forums I was part of. The reaction was quite positive overall. People were particularly complimentary about the packaging and we sold a few bars online straight away, which was a great feeling.
It took a week for my rota to finally allow me to start approaching shops. Again, I barely slept with excitement (I struggle with childlike excitement!), and travelled from Taunton to Minehead to visit my first potential stockist, Toucan Wholefoods. I arrived an hour and a half early, so from 7:30am until 9:00am I wandered around trying to find somewhere to sit and prepare myself.
I felt a little nervous going into Toucan Wholefoods in a suit that was far too big for me, but Sally, the owner, was very kind and agreed to trial a few bars. I immediately followed this up with a visit to West Somerset Garden Centre and suddenly I was two out of two.
What followed was a surprisingly successful first week. We opened eight accounts with zero rejections. It wasn’t until a trip to a garden centre near Wellington that I finally received a particularly blunt rejection, which definitely made me slightly more circumspect going forwards. Within a month I got into the shop I really wanted to, The County Stores in Taunton. They even let me do a tasting session to drive up sales.
My wife claims she used to go into the County Stores and secretly buy Discover Chocolate bars to support the business without me knowing (she knew it was mine). This was a good five years before we eventually met up again after college, although even if it is a slight exaggeration on her part, it is still quite a nice story.
As I expanded, I travelled further afield, eventually reaching as far north as Cumbria and Yorkshire, where we found stockists in Haworth and Halifax, alongside the busier but much faster-paced wholefood shops of Surrey and London.
Selling Gianduiotto in the UK
Gianduiotto was particularly fun to sell because, at the time, it was still relatively unknown in the UK. High-end places stocked it, but it was not widely available in the South West.
We could also offer private label packaging, where companies could pay around €50 and have their own branding added. Local coffee shop The Olive Tree in Taunton took us up on this and became one of the first cafés locally to serve mini gianduiotto alongside coffees from their counter.
There was only one problem. No matter how many shops I signed up, my shifts at Royal Mail didn’t decrease. I enjoyed making the chocolate but the travel began to wear me down, I was driving thousands of miles a year and I was not enjoying being in the car as much, for limited financial reward it became clear overtime I wasn't going to get out of it what I wanted. Working hard to achieve a goal is fine, and I like to think I can tolerate some hardship along the way, but after 4 years when you are hoping a cheque clears so you have enough fuel to drive home from a trade fair at the NEC, or you are spending another cold night on the floor on Stansted airport there comes a point when you have to accept that staying full time at Royal Mail would have made more money in the short, medium and long term.
Looking back I had more options than I thought and likely could have increased my catalogue or even done things as simple as raising minimum orders but I stuck with plans a bit too rigidly.
The Next Chapter
I sold Discover Chocolate in 2018 and then left to do other jobs. Whilst the company was running I avoided making chocolate for obvious reasons but ultimately gave it another go when the time was right. Whilst we have not returned to bars, we have definitely sold Gianduiotto again and it has proven just as successful as before. Gianduiotto will soon be added to our range of chocolate gift boxes. With the great taste and quality I can be sure this is not the end of the gianduiotto story.
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