Bertazzoni’s home is Guastalla, near Parma in the region of Emilia-Romagna. This is the Po Valley, the great fertile plain once known as ‘the bread basket of the Roman Empire’. From here comes the food that gives Italian cooking its distinctive and delectable qualities so famed around the world.

The fabulously rich soil generates superb grains and grasslands, orchards and vegetables – wheat for pasta, corn for polenta, rice for risottos, peaches, pears, cherries, quince and of course deep red flavorsome tomatoes. From this land come great butter and cheese, pork, beef, veal, poultry and game, with fish from the Mediterranean and porcini, nuts and truffles from the foothills of the Apennines.

With traditional skills, these riches are turned into classics such as Parmigiano Reggiano (Parmesan cheese), prosciutto di Parma (Parma ham) mortadella and other piquant cured meats and salamis. The region’s vineyards produce Lambrusco, Sangiovese – and Trebbiano, which is also carefully aged into the renowned aceto balsamico di Modena (balsamic vinegar).

Cooking is living

Mealtime in Emilia-Romagna is an essential convivial occasion, the foil for conversation and appreciation. Orchestrating the delicious array of the region’s produce creates living rituals and traditions, ever reinterpreted to contemporary life.

The meal starts with antipasto, which may feature anything from vegetables with prosciutto or other cured meats to fruit such as pears with Parmesan and balsamic vinegar. Other popular appetisers are bruschetta, and caprese (fresh buffalo mozzarella with cherry tomatoes and basil).

The first course (primo) is usually pasta. Cooks of the region are masters of fresh flat pasta, cut into strips to make tagliatelle, left whole to make lasagne or stuffed to make classics such as tortellini, ravioli, cappelletti and a host of other shapes and flavors. They are accompanied by any amount of ragus, from perfumed meat to the many vegetable traditional creations. Alternatively there is the risotto, made with special short-grained rice with almost every flavor.

The main course (secondo) is based on the region’s meats – veal, beef, pork, poultry and game – cooked in many sauces, full of great taste. Seafood appears frequently and fish are served in soups and casseroles or with fragrant Italian oil, garlic and parsley.

The finale consists of fruit, especially homegrown peaches, cherries, and pears, as well as nuts, cakes, gelato and desserts. The wines drunk with this delicious fare are a slightly bubbly Lambrusco from Emilia, or the red Sangiovese and dry white Trebbiano from Romagna.

Bertazzoni is today a byword for style and excellence all over the world. The family company is presided over by the fifth and sixth generations – an unbroken line that stretches back to the 19th century and an Italian town called Guastalla near Parma. This is where Francesco Bertazzoni, a maker of precision weighing machines for the cheese industry, noticed a new type of wood burning stove being used for heating railcars on the railroad from Germany. He and his son Antonio began to make their own stoves, which were soon being sent all over Italy.

Out into the world

In 1909 the family established its first factory. They expanded again in the 1920s as their wood burning stove cookers - sold under the La Germania brand - won awards of excellence. Napoleone, Francesco’s grandson, introduced new mass production techniques he learned while working for Fiat in Turin. In the inter-war years, stove production soared to 80,000 units.

In the 1950s Bertazzoni began to make its first gas stoves. The clean, instant energy transformed the prospects of the company. In the 1960s the first exports began and, by the turn of the century, the company’s cooking appliances were being sold in over 60 countries around the world.

In 2001, the company introduced the unequalled 'Toyota system' for manufacturing that relies on the relationship between exceptional speed and uncompromising quality, dependent on the commitment and culture of the company's people. Bertazzoni also began exhaustive analysis of the American market and in 2005 launched a series of all-new ranges there under the new 'Bertazzoni' brand name. Success soon followed.

Today Bertazzoni exports its cooking appliances all over the world selling at the top end of the market through a high-quality dealer network, both under the Bertazzoni and the Bertazzoni La Germania brands names.

In 2005 the Bertazzoni brand was first introduced in the USA and Canada. New international alliances were forged as the growing network of distributors, dealers and other specialist agents helped move the brand forward and open up new markets.

The new age

Production in Bertazzoni’s modern manufacturing facility in Guastalla has quadrupled since 1998. Now the size of the plant is being further increased to boost capacity and add new products. New vigor and ideas are being embraced in innovative market strategies as the fifth and sixth Bertazzoni generations guide the international sales and brand management of the company.

For all its modernization and global marketing, Bertazzoni never forgets that its roots are in the traditions of the Italian family, culture and style. And that the company remains a specialist in the very personal art of cooking.