The idea is to apply the same principle to the production of gelato that the best restaurants all over the world use: buy the best quality raw materials.
With this aim in mind, we've been searching out the very best that agriculture can offer since 2002, following simple but strict principles: only fruit harvested when fully ripened from Italy's best consortia and farmers; no use of colouring agents, aromas or emulsifiers.
This is how gelato "the way it used to be" came into being: creamy flavours using only fresh high quality milk and free-range eggs; sorbets using lots of fruit (in many cases more than 50%), Sparea® spring water and white cane sugar.
We prepare the liquid mixtures in our production laboratory in Turin, and then with careful cold chain management these are distributed to the individual gelaterias, where they are produced fresh for the customer. By centralizing the first phase (mixing the ingredients) we can keep production quality levels constant and it also means we can buy some types of fruit that are only available from certain consortia and not be dependent on the general markets of each town or city.
This is how the flavours that make us famous throughout Italy and the rest of the world come into being: the Siracusa Lemon PGI sorbet, the Barbero d'Asti Torrone gelato, the Guatemala coffee gelato and the Ecuadorian chocolate sorbet.
Guido Martinetti: "I was eating a sandwich during my lunch break and reading the newspaper when an article by Slow
Food founder, Carlo Petrini, caught my eye. He said no-one in Italy makes 'gelato the way it used to be' "
Federico Grom: "Yep...that's some problem ..."
Guido: "You don't get it! He was talking about high quality gelato, with naturally-sourced ingredients, no aromas, no emulsifiers,
no colouring agents! »
Federico: "Cool. So what's your idea then? "
In May 2003 we opened our first Grom gelateria: a tiny shop, 25 metres square, in the centre of our home city, Turin, in the north-west of Italy.
The idea was to make gelato the way it used to be - pure, authentic, and taking no shortcuts - while everyone else, even in the homeland of gelato,
couldn't get enough of colouring agents and aromas. It was an immediate hit: 15-20-metre queues only made us want to do even better.
And on 6 July an article about us appeared written by ... Carlo Petrini, founder of Slow Food.
January 2005 - we invest in a production laboratory just outside Turin, where all the raw materials we've selected on our travels around Italy and the world arrive; we do research and development and we enter the first production phase: mixing the ingredients. Actual gelato production takes place in the stores themselves. That's why our gelato is as good in New York or Jakarta as it is in Turin.
In 2008 our Paris gelateria opens. Our dream is to make each Grom store abroad a kind of ambassador for authentic quality Italian gelato. Proud to be introducing a quality Italian product, we decide to leave our sign in Italian: "Grom. Il gelato come una volta ". Today you can find Grom in three continents: from Jakarta, Los Angeles, Dubai and Shanghai.
The story of Guido and Federico, two guys who decide to bet everything on a bit of a crazy dream - make the best gelato in the world - and end up creating a highly successful international business with over 600 employees, has inspired many people to find the courage to dream . They decide to describe their adventure in a book: "Grom. Story of a friendship, some gelato and many flowers "
Our philosophy has always been that if we can't find anything anywhere that's good enough, then we'll make it ourselves. We wanted to cut gluten out of our gelato stores, but couldn't find anything in the market that met our standards so we start making cones and biscuits, buying the best raw materials and keeping the label as short as possible.
A dream we've had for some time has finally come true: make real gelateria gelato available outside a gelateria. Is it possible to make a pre-packed gelato using the best possible ingredients without adding aromas, colouring agents or emulsifiers? Of course it is, it just depends how badly you want to! We did research, we experimented and - let's face it - made some mistakes, but in the end we managed to put pure, authentic Grom gelato in a tub.