We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Piervalerio Vignola a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.

Piervalerio, appreciate you joining us today. One of the things we most admire about small businesses is their ability to diverge from the corporate/industry standard. Is there something that you or your brand do that differs from the industry standard? We’d love to hear about it as well as any stories you might have that illustrate how or why this difference matters.

Every day, more and more I realize how difficult it is to eat well in the United States. Walking through the shelves of supermarkets, just for a moment try to take a product that you normally use and focus on the ingredients list. Then try to do a quick search of the additives and ask yourself, do I really want to feed myself and even worse my kids with Disodium diphosphate, glyphosate, sorbic acid and the list keeps going? Just to eat a piece of bread, that should just have water and flour? Unfortunately, the mass production of products in the United States leads manufacturing companies to find any possible shortcut to increase productivity and reduce costs, using additives, and chemicals while putting at risk our health.
Pizza probably is one of my favourite dishes, I used to eat pizza at least once a week all my life long. When I moved here, unfortunately, I couldn’t do that anymore. You go to a restaurant, supposedly Italian, eat a pizza and most of the time you feel bloated and full for a couple of days. Also, I don’t have control of what someone else’s does. What ingredients do they use, and what processes they have implemented?

I love my life, I love to have a good life and I take care of my body and health. I wondered one day, is there something that I can do better than everyone else out there?
I came to the conclusion that if I want to eat well, I have to prepare everything myself. Same as me, a lot of people are focused on taking care of themselves, health is the priority above anything else.
I thought, how can I create a product that I can enjoy myself and also offer to anyone else?

This is the mission of PIZZACINI, we create a pizza that uses only natural ingredients and processes. We import our ingredients, we work closely with our vendor making sure that any ingredient we use is 100% natural and free of any chemicals or preservatives. The beauty is that is frozen, you can eat at your home anytime and whenever you want.

What is the worst part of pizza or bread? The yeast! If used incorrectly yeast is what makes you feel bloated and make you fat. Well, at PIZZACINI, we completely remove the yeast from our recipes. We use a combination of water, flour and natural processes to obtain a healthy fermentation of the dough.

I believe that every dollar more spent on the food I eat is a dollar that I invest in my health and future. I’m very conscious about what I put in my body, and I hope you take a minute too, to think about what you want to eat and what your kids should eat.

Great, appreciate you sharing that with us. Before we ask you to share more of your insights, can you take a moment to introduce yourself and how you got to where you are today to our readers.

I’m a former officer of merchant marine and cruise ships. I spent most of my life onboard, and food is always a struggle. I always had a passion for cooking, creating something unique and with the least possible ingredients. I moved to the United States in 2017 and since then it started my journey as an entrepreneur in the food industry. I came to the States to do something that has nothing to do with the food industry. However, after realizing how polluted is food here, I wanted to create something mine, something that is good for people to eat, something that distinguishes us from the masses. In the beginning, I started bringing “the Italian” experience with Neapolitan pizzas into people’s houses and apartments too. Then COVID came, so private events were very limited. So I had to reinvent myself. I started cooking pizza on the balcony of an apartment. I was working full-time in the office at my other full-time job, hence I could cook only on Saturdays. People would place the orders on Friday and I would cook and deliver at the exact time they had asked for on Saturday. I was getting popular and people love my pizza. I started receiving requests throughout the week, but I couldn’t deliver or cook during the week as I was working full-time in the office. This is when I had the beautiful idea to create the same authentic product, but this time froze so families could enjoy it anytime they wanted without waiting for my schedule. This is how PIZZACINI was born. With my business partner, we started building the factory where today we operate, providing pizza for restaurants, hotels, supermarkets, and many other locations.

Can you open up about how you funded your business?

When you start your own business funding is the most difficult thing to do. If you have the money already all good, you just use the money you have, make a good business plan, consider the unplanned and go for it. Banks will not lend money to any new business if the business doesn’t have at least two years of tax return with positive incomes. If you are starting a new business of course this is a ridiculous requirement.

Most of the time is to go with private investors. You need to create a good business plan, a good interest plan and convince the investors, with your pitch, why your business will be successful.

In my case I had some funding on the side that I used to get started with the business, also we are in two, so all the expenses are shared between two of us. The worst part, was that we had planning to complete the buildout in about a year, instead it took almost two year to complete. This means that we had a year more of lease to pay without any income. This was painful. Luckily I had a property in Italy that I sold to generate more Capital to put into the business.

Okay – so how did you figure out the manufacturing part? Did you have prior experience?

We manufacture and create all the recipes of our products. For the pizza in particular, it took me two years to create the perfect combination of dough that is all natural and would perform well when reheated from frozen. I spent weeks making doughs and pizzas and throwing them away. Everything requires persistence, patience and love. If you expect to think about something and that something would work at the first shot, most of the time you might be wrong. Edison failed a thousand times before he was able to create the light bulb. One thing is certain, when you believe in what you are creating, soon or later you’ll find the solution.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://pizzacini.com
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/pizzaciniofficial/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/pizzacini/