Last farewell to Aldo Balocco, honorary president of the homonymous and historic confectionery company, one of the best known, modern and solid industrial companies in our country. Born in Fossano (Cuneo) in 1930, Aldo Balocco has brought his company to dispose of over 75.000 covered square meters, with ten production plants for breakfast biscuits, leavened products and other sweets. In the last ten years it has made technological investments for over 100 million euros and represents a source of pride for the area in terms of efficiency, growth and financial solidity. It develops a turnover of 200 million euros, with 500 employees, and exports to over 70 countries around the world.

Aldo Balocco

Orphaned by his mother after just a week of life, he grew up with his mother's sisters, Lucia Cussino, in nearby Genola. At the age of nine, he returns to Fossano to the home of his father, Francesco Antonio Balocco, right in the pastry shop he founded in 1927, which overlooks the Piazza del Castello degli Acaja. His new mothers become the confectioner's shop assistants. On 8 September 1943, father and son are forced to flee to Dogliani, in the Langhe, taking refuge in a farmhouse next to Luigi Einaudi's farms. After the end of the war, Aldo separates again from his father, moving to Cuneo to complete his higher studies.

Balocco with his sons Alberto and Alessandra

Also this time the Cussinos welcome him: his mother's younger brother, Piero, who will be the architect of the extraordinary rebirth of Venchi chocolate, becomes for him the brother he never had. In 1949, having finished his studies, Aldo Balocco returned to Fossano. He is not yet twenty, but since he was a child he lived among the pastry chefs and already has very clear ideas. The activity of the shops, with fresh pastries, is well underway, but the work is mostly concentrated on weekends. How to make the most of the laboratory's production capacity? One day he reveals his dream to his father: "We must insist on dry pastries and start producing sweets for wholesale". 

Mandorlato

The first plant is distributed over four floors, around a central courtyard which is accessed through a large wooden door.  The tins full of sweets, the so-called "tole" in Piedmontese, intended for wholesalers throughout Italy, are the most eloquent image of the change that is taking place. These are the years of the economic boom, and in the factory in Via San Bernardo, the embryo of the future Balocco, the first removable trolley ovens for panettone are installed.

The almond

In 1955 Aldo Balocco decided to hire a young Lombard, displaced to Cuneo in the dark years of the war, who had worked in Milan at Motta and Alemagna, at the time two giants of the confectionery industry. Ermanno Crespi, originally from Abbiategrasso, introduces the "natural leavening" technology to Fossano. From this idea a new one is born Panettone: high like the Milanese one, but frosted like the lower Piedmontese one. Plus covered with toasted almonds and sugar grains. A mix of Lombardy and Piedmont. And Aldo immediately gets the name right: the Almond Balocco, who will become the worldwide ambassador of the Fossano-based company.

knight aldo balocco
Aldo Balocco receives the honor of Cavaliere del Lavoro

In 1970 Balocco moved to the new headquarters in Via Santa Lucia, also in Fossano: 20 thousand square meters against the 5 thousand of the previous factory. New and more modern machines arrive and under the guidance of Aldo the company grinds success after success. In the mid-seventies, advertising on television arrived, and the Balocco panettone thus entered the homes of all Italians. In 1990, Aldo Balocco's children also joined the company and started the company's entry into the breakfast market. In June 2010, at the Quirinale, Aldo Balocco was proclaimed Cavaliere del Lavoro by the President of the Republic Giorgio Napolitano.

(Photo www.balocco.it)

Last farewell to Aldo Balocco, president of the historic confectionery company last edit: 2022-07-03T11:49:48+02:00 da Staff

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