The “Castellanza” Rotary for the first convivial of the month of June, gathered in the room of the Dinner restaurant in Legnano after the Joint Council meeting during which the Incoming Andrea Radice shared his program for the new year with the councilors Rotarian now upon us. At the end of the dinner, member Stefano Cionini took the floor to introduce the evening’s illustrious speaker, Tancredi Alemagna.
Rotary’s guest was the entrepreneur from the historic Alemagna family
Alemagna was born on 3 April 1980 in Conegliano, in the province of Treviso. Grandson of Alberto Alemagna, the historic “king of panettone”, after graduating in Economics and Commerce from Bocconi in Milan he moved to Bangkok to follow a master’s degree in Business Internationalization, after which he decided to undertake various work experiences to get involved, improve one’s training and increase personal knowledge in the world of work;
In 2003 he began his career in the world of finance at the savings management company Anima SpA; In 2004 he accepted the challenge launched by the Artsana Spa Group by managing a logicist reorganization project; In 2005 he flew to New York and for a year joined the team of the international law firm DLA Piper Global. He returns to Milan and is contacted by the well-known Varese company Fly Safe Bag, of which he becomes Export Manager, following a project to expand the company on the foreign market.
In 2007 the family genes began to make themselves felt with arrogance and, therefore, he decided to found T’a Milano with his brother Alberto.
A new brand
The idea of the Alemagna Brothers, which later proved to be successful, was to create a brand of high quality pastry and artisanal chocolate, with the aim of revisiting in a contemporary key the family art begun over a century earlier by their great-grandfather Gioacchino Alemagna, who as a shop boy managed to build a success that has remained imprinted in the history of Italian desserts.
Tancredi and Alberto began their experience in the confectionery sector, with a 300 m2 artisan workshop and 3 employees, which saw a first expansion in 2011 with the opening of a new 1200 m2 production site.
Since Resisi immediately realized that chocolate had a marked seasonality, with over 70% of the turnover concentrated in 3 months of the year, they developed the conviction of having to expand T’a Milano’s business by expanding into the catering and banqueting sectors.
In 2018, studying the large-scale retail market, Tancredi and Alberto understood that consumers are increasingly attentive to the quality of the products they purchase and decided to launch a new premium chocolate brand dedicated to large-scale retail trade: CG – Gourmet Chocolate.
Having established the first commercial relationships in this sector which was new to them, the size of the production laboratory was increased more than tenfold and the employees hired quickly reached over 50 units.
The production center in Cerro Maggiore
Not even the great global crisis caused by the Covid-19 pandemic stopped these two young entrepreneurs, who took advantage of it to rethink the company offer, innovate and create products suitable for delivery, all made by the Cerro Maggiore ghost kitchen.
Subsequently, T’a Milano made new and important evolutions in its gastronomic offering, applying innovative techniques in the production of gourmet ready meals, sold to the main 4 and 5 star operators and to some important catering establishments, achieving great success (500,000 dishes sold in the period May – December 2020 – 700,000 during 2021).
Today T’a Milano develops through a production plant of over 5000 m2 in Cerro Maggiore (MI), with 20 product lines for over 300 references including chocolate, pastry, anniversary products, ready meals and catering, operating in the high range and distributing its products in over 350 prestigious sales points around the world.
In the company, Tancredi deals with the commercial development of the sweet and savory line dedicated to BTB and the creation of new product lines, holding the role of general manager.
Today T’a Milano has 110 employees, a turnover of 13 million euros and has an important industrial development plan ahead of it.
The comment from Rotary Castellanza
“Tancredi Alemagna talks about his entrepreneurial adventure and we know a talented, creative, active young man, always looking for new challenges and new goals. I am not an entrepreneur, but also a family man, Tancredi loves spending his free time with his loved ones, traveling. He loves to practice mountain sports such as skiing and climbing, in his free time he dedicates himself to finance and art, he has a great passion for golf which he shares with his eldest son. Thanks to his narration we enter a world of gluttony and sweetness for increasingly demanding and sophisticated refined palates. Tancredi Alemagna honored those present with a delicious gift of chocolates and an illustrated text on the history of chocolate”.
The evening ends with the usual photographs, a warm round of applause for our speaker and the thanks of the entire Club to Stefano Cionini for making us discover this delicious Italian reality.
