Simone Fortunato

So much work, but a lot of satisfaction too: Summer is the time of harvest and of continuous quality testing for Ciao. This year, we brought with us an exceptional team of tasters – the World Pizza Champions Simone Fortunato and Davide Civitiello – to see first-hand the quality of our tomorrow tomatoes, starting right from the first step. Here is the story of this special day.

A summer both hot and exceptional for our fields, with record temperatures that forced us to work in shorter times to keep the product intact as freshly picked, but that at the same time that also brought intense colors and flavors to our crops.

We asked to two exceptional testers – Simone Fortunato, three times world champion for the fast pizza category, and Davide Civitiello, champion for the TSG pizza, both winners of the Caputo Trophy – to touch with first-hand the raw materials of our 2017-2018 production.

«Pizza is a dish strictly tied to the ground,” – tells Davide Civitiello – “because deepening your dough technique is not enough to produce excellence, as you have to carefully select raw materials and get to know their ingredients in detail. Pizza is a dish full of history, but also of stories: those of our producers from Campania region!»

For Davide Civitiello and Simone Fortunato a tour among the most lively colors of Campania: the red of our fields of PDO San Marzano tomatoes, but also the bright green of our basil crops that we add leaf after leaf to the peeled tomato cans for the American market.

«I had never seen how the basil grows – says Simone Fortunato of Pizzeria Diaz – Finding out first-hands how the ingredients that I pick each day for my pizzas grow has been stimulating, but also very instructive. For a pizza maker who wants to make a difference, it is very important to carefully select the products of their menu and know how to handle them by mastering all their properties.»

The day has been closed by a tour through the various steps of peeled tomato production, during which our pizza makers have seen how the tomatoes move from the field to the can just in a few hours, so to lose nothing of their fragrance and flavor.

«Walking among the tins that were being filled with peeled tomatoes – concludes Davide Civitiello – has been a bit like going back to my grandmother’s time, when the summer had the scent of the earth and of the boiled tomatoes!»

The memory that Simone Fortunato has taken home is instead that of basil’s aroma, perhaps because it is linked to a great adventure that he is about to begin. On September 22, Sorrento will be the cradle of a new chain of pizzerias: Basilico Italia, who will see him as the pizza maker executive manager, in collaboration with Maurizio Mastellone’s organizational experience.

Sorrento Peninsula will be the first step, but the goal is to bring the excellence of the great products from the Campania region to all of Italy.

What does that have to do with Ciao? We will tell you very soon!