A pastry café that has existed for over a century and a half.
tvsvizzera.it
“Konz & C.” in Arezzo, Tuscany, has been synonymous with trade for over a century and a half. Born as a grocery store in 1857, the company founded by two Swiss men then opened up to different markets – from wholesale to petrol distribution – until its sudden bankruptcy in 2014.
This content was published on
June 22, 2024 – 08:56
Until just ten years ago in Arezzo, Tuscany, there existed a company that everyone knew was of Swiss origin. Because “Konz & C.” it had been part of the city’s history for over 150 years. It was passed from father to son until the Second World War until the descendants of the founders decided to leave the city while maintaining part of the ownership of the company which continued to remain somehow “Swiss” until 2014, the year in which it went bankrupt. officially.
Yet few in Arezzo know the story of Giacomo Konz and the other Swiss partners who, starting from the second half of the nineteenth century, decided to make Arezzo their home and the base of their activities which in over a century and a half of history have ranged from pastry shops to petrol through wholesale and retail trade. Perhaps because today all that remains of the presence of the Swiss in Arezzo is a bar (which has kept its name despite changing management several times) and a now abandoned and semi-destroyed department store.
What everyone (or almost everyone) knows, however, is the legend according to which Giacomo Konz arrived in Arezzo by pure chance. Actually, by mistake.
The legend of the stop at the wrong station
“Legend has it that Giacomo Konz came to Arezzo by mistake because he thought he had gotten off at Pistoia station. Finding himself in Arezzo and there not being the quantity of trains that exist today, he began touring the city and fell in love with this place.” This legend is told to tvsvizzera.it by Maicol Cerofolini, the current owner of “Pasticceria Stefano – Gli Svizzeri”, the first place founded in 1857 by the Swiss Giacomo Konz and Enrico Lansel.
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A legend that does not seem to correspond to reality, if only because at the time the railway station in Arezzo did not even exist (it was in fact inaugurated in 1866). Yet there is a kernel of truth: Konz and Lansel, who already had a business in Pisa, had no intention of settling in Arezzo when they decided to expand their activities outside the city of the Leaning Tower.
So how did they get to Val di Chiana? The answer comes from a speech that Giacomo Konz (grandson of the founder of the same name) gave in 1957 during a company trip to Scuol, the founders’ place of origin in the Lower Engadine.
“Towards the middle of the last century, two Swiss – Enrico Lansel and my grandfather Giacomo Konz – carried out the trade in drugs, colonial and similar in Pisa”, we read in the transcription of the speech contained in the volume “The Swiss in Arezzo” edited by Luigi Armandi (Letizia Editore).
“It was reported to them that a place lacking a well-equipped grocery store was Cortona, in Arezzo, on the edge of the Grand Duchy of Tuscany. Following this, my grandfather set out for that city, to ascertain on the spot whether or not it was advisable to set up a company there. […] Along the way he came into conversation with a casual traveling companion: a certain Mr. Aiazzi from Arezzo, then belonging to the Grand Ducal Administration, later an official of the Prefecture of Arezzo. The latter persuaded him to stop in Arezzo, to see if it wasn’t worth opening a grocery store there].
It was therefore thanks to the fortuitous meeting on the diligence between a certain Aiazzi and Giacomo Konz that the latter decided to stop in Arezzo that day. It is not known what convinced him, once he returned to Pisa, to propose to his partner Enrico Lansel to establish their company there. What we know is that in the end Enrico accepted while keeping the sister company in the shadow of the Tower.
The sister company from Pisa
Although the Arezzo company of Konz and Lansel arrived later in time, it was the one that managed to adapt better to the new market needs than the Pisan one. Yet “the project of opening the Arezzo shop in 1857 was born in Pisa”, as Edoardo Lansel, Enrico’s son, recalled in 1957.
Other developments
Other developments
The Caflisch, pastry chefs from Grisons in the shadow of Vesuvius
This content was published on
Sep 19, 2021
In Italy there is a name that – in the North as in the South – is often linked to pastry making and entrepreneurship. It is the name of Luigi Caflisch.
More The Caflisch, pastry chefs from Grisons in the shadow of Vesuvius
To trace the Tuscan history of Giacomo Konz and Enrico Lansel you have to go back in time. In the first half of the nineteenth century it was common for the Swiss of the Canton of Grisons to prepare for a future of emigration along the Peninsula. The reason was simple: the lack of earning opportunities for the entire population.
“Even for my father Enrico, who was the last of seven brothers, the need arose to go to Italy, to Florence, where one of his older brothers had two cafés. So, as soon as he finished school in Sent, he left the country at a very young age. The journey then took 10 to 15 days by horse-drawn stagecoach. After spending two years in Florence he moved to Pisa to stay with one of his aunts and where, in 1851, he had the opportunity to meet Giacomo Konz, his future partner and brother-in-law”, said Edoardo Lansel.
The two, who became friends, after working in various grocery stores in the city, decided to start their own business. And on April 23, 1853 they founded “Lansel & C.”. A few years later, on March 1, 1957, the sister company “Konz & C.” arrived. based in Arezzo.
From sweets to oil
“The two companies in Pisa and Arezzo carried out the same type of trade, that is, grocery, pastry, liquor factory and colonial goods”, says Edoardo Lansel. But what made the Arezzo company special – and what allowed it to survive its Pisan sister company – was its ability to totally adapt to changing market demands.
“There is a saying that we must always keep in mind when carrying out our business, and it is this: ‘Whoever stops, dies’”, said Giacomo Konz (nephew) to his employees on the day of the company’s hundredth birthday.
And in fact the Konz, the Lansel and the Italians who later directed the company’s activities never stopped. Because from the small Drogheria at Canto de’ Bacci (where the “Gli svizzeri” pastry shop still stands today), Konz first expanded by acquiring several premises in other parts of the city. Then even completely changing one’s nature.
When the partners of “Konz & C.” they realized that there was a good profit margin in the sale of oil for lighting, they turned to the Standard Oil Company (shortly after which it became Esso Standard) from which up to that moment they had turned as customers to supply oil, to ask to become the official distributors of the province and surrounding areas. Following the constant development of motoring they decided and at the same time as the development of the electrification network they decided to maintain relations with Esso and opened petrol stations.
“With the development of motorization in agriculture – says Giacomo Konz – we started selling agricultural fuels and lubricants. The increasingly general use of fuel oil for ovens and boilers has led us to equip ourselves for the distribution of this product. So we have followed the passage of time in this sector too. The same thing goes for the sales organization.” Konz and his partners realized that retail sales were changing and threw themselves into the business of door-to-door sales to large distributors and the large-scale distribution of packaged products (they were among the first to understand the potential of industrialization of the gastronomic sector).
In short, diversification was the basis of the company’s growth which led it to prosper for over 150 years. Until, in December 2014, what remained of “Konz & C.” did not close its doors permanently.
