GUSTI Blog

Why do merchants price their items $X.99? Do they think we are idiots?

The $X.99 price tag is common in supermarkets for many items like toilette paper, detergents, and what have you. Now I see the $X.99, even on quality food products. I never liked it. The marketing experts will tell you that when the customers sees $19.99 their brains would register $19 and not $20 and they perceive the price of the item as less expensive. I still don't like it; I feel offended and treated like an idiot who cannot count. My perception is, instead, the opposite: everything that has a $.99 suffix is not a bargain, it is cheap product.

Pasta Martelli Just Arrived in the Warehouse

Pasta Martelli just arrived in the warehouse. We received a new container from Italy and, for once, we had no problem with FDA and US Customs. Thank goodness!

Here is Gerard, downloading the truck with the precious cargo. It's an important moment because we have been out of pasta Martelli, in particular the spaghetti, for quite a while. We all know it takes a long time to make artisanal pasta because it needs to dry naturally for hours and hours. These spaghetti must have been drying for two months!

With the Martellis, the order process takes a very long time. They have a small factory with small production but high demand. You just must be patient and wait -there is nothing else to do. If you were desperate and thought you could go to the source in Lari, near Pisa, to buy their pasta, you would have returned empty handed, because the Martelli don't sell their pasta there, either.

The only place to buy Martelli pasta on the internet is at Gustiamo.

This and That Lunch with Gustiamo - Don't Call the Office Between 1 and 2pm, Pls.

Danielle Oteri writes an inspiring food blog called Good.Food.Stories. She came to see us and was given a tour of the the warehouse by Stefano. Not too much of a work out: the warehouse is only 30 feet long. Nevertheless, it was lunch time and Danielle sat at the table with us. She could not believe we do this every day - we bring leftovers, things we cook with our products. We spend an hour at the table each day between 1 and 2pm and discuss work issues, the movie we saw yesterday and other cosmic topics. Read here, the great essay Danielle wrote after her lunch experience at Gustiamo. Now, you know:

- try not to call between 1 and 2 pm. We will answer the phone, but with our mouth full. Not elegant.

- come to the Bronx and pay us a visit around lunch time and you are in for a surprise.

Grazie Danielle, we look forward to seeing you again. You are a great cook; next time, bring your leftovers, too.

Do you want to save 1 cent on Martelli pasta? Go to the Food Emporium.

 Is the Food Emporium increasing the quality of their offerings? This would be great, as I have a local store near my house and it would be very convenient to shop there. I went there yesterday and found pasta Martelli at $7.99; I was tempted to buy it there and save 1 cent but I didn't.

That we sell Martelli at the same price as Food Emporium is a further indication how hard we are trying to offer you value. How can we compete with the economy of scale of a 30 store chain in the metropolitan area, backed by their parent A&P? We try harder.

Zitto zitto... panettone has arrived. No flavors, no distractions, just plain panettone.

Zitto zitto ... which means, with no fanfare, the panettone by Angelo Marchesi has landed in the Bronx a couple of weeks ago. This panettone is so famous (Mario Batali said that it "will become your only panettone once you taste it" - sorry, Mario, we'll use this line for the rest of our lives!), customers have been checking our website constantly to see whether IT is back in stock; they found IT and are already placing their orders. Amazing! And talking about great great chefs, Piero Selvaggio of legendary Valentino, just reserved a whole case for his family in LA. So, hurry up!

If you are into truffle oil, this Panettone is not for you. It's not flavored. No chocolate, no limoncello, no fruit (only traditional fresh Italian raisins and candied orange peel) no distractions. It's just a plain Panettone Milanese, but it is the one, the only and the best you can buy. It's also very expensive. But all worth it!

IS America, an invaluable business partner and a great friend of Gustiamo's

This is John Elder, of IS America, the US operations of the shipping company Italsempione. A shipping company is one of the importer's most valuable partners - especially if you import food. It took me a while to figure it out but now, I know it well! In fact, we changed shippers many times during Gustiamo's life. We have been working with IS America for the last four years. Their: attention to detail, knowledge, communication with the Italian counter part, professionalism are beyond good. They are exceptional! Listen to what just happened. Our last shipment had 3 big tins (25 liters each - big tins) of Tratturello EV Olive Oil which arrived damaged. It happens, of course! Everybody in this business understands. Instead of starting a long song and dance, pointing fingers and making us all waste a lot of time, Edoardo Simioni, the principal at IS, consulted his collegues and said: I know this olive oil is very good; we'll buy the damaged cans, transfer the oil into bottles and we'll use it ourselves! The day after, John and Luca came to the warehouse to pick up their cans.

Two points:

- if you are friends of Edoardo, John or Luca's, you know what is going to go under your tree! Lucky you.

- Edoardo, John and Luca, not only are you good business partners, you are great friends! You'll have Gustiamo forever. Hope this doesn't sound like a threat!

Grazie.

Disisa Olive Oil from Monreale, in Sicilia, is so good because it is 100% Cerasuola.

This beautiful couple are mamma Maria Paola and son Mario. They came to NY last week, to tell us about their Disisa EV Olive Oil and their wine (Feudo Disisa), served at some best restaurants in NY, including the new Casa Lever. Mamma Maria Paola is the "olive oil guru" of the family: she is a professional taster, a fervent advocate of real olive oil and travels the world to promote good practices.

Their property is in Monreale, on the hills near Palermo, 80 hectares planted with local cerasuola olive trees. A few years ago, they built their own mill in the property so that  the olives are crushed within 2 hours of the harvest, now in full swing. The harvest, of course, is all manual (the workers use the combs, olives fall on nets on the ground). Why is the Disisa olive oil so exceptional? In Maria Paola and Mario's words: because it is 100% cerasuola, a local olive that keeps the organolectic properties and freshness of the oil for a longer time.

Watch this video (click this link), Mario introduces his beautiful oil on the Hudson river. The rooster in the distance is for good luck.

Miracle keywords with google. From nowhere Gustiamo ranked first for Extra Virgin Olive Oil

This is Nicolette. Not only she is beautiful, as you can see from the picture. She is very smart, works hard and understand things that are beyond the comprehension of most of us humans. She is an expert in SEO (search engine optimization, if you didn't know), but in particular, she is an expert on Google adwords, the thing you do when you want to rank higher on the search engine. With her class mates Nicole, Scott and Candice, Nicolette undertook a project sponsored by Google and chose Gustiamo as their case study. A desperate case, I'd say. Read the facts here. The good news is their  project was among the 3,000 Google selected to judge from 15,000 projects submitted from all over the world. Already,this is a great accomplishment!

The competing teams were given $200 and three weeks in April. During this time, Nicolette's group monitored the results of their keywords twice a day, at 6pm and at 2am (somehow they had determined that our "market" is more active at those times - I have not understood this, yet; if true, we will stay up all night!). They changed the keywords constantly, improving their "quality", adding negative words (I'll explain this another time) and kept monitoring. Well, the project is finished and Nicolette can sleep now. She submitted her very well written final report (even I understood it) to Google. Listen to this[!], they just learned that their work [and Gustiamo] finished 35th out of 3,000 contestants. If, in April, you searched "extra virgin olive oil" on Google, Gustiamo would have come up first. I think we'll resume the campaign very soon! Grazie Nicoletta, great job!!! 

David Pays a Visit to Sant'Eustachio in Roma. Video Responds to Video.

Who is David? I have no idea. YouTube emailed me that somebody (David) posted a video in response to our video "Sant'Eustachio coffee on its way to PHISH's Trey Anastasio". [It was Nicole who was going to see Phish]  YouTube was requesting my approval. I just spent an hour trying to understand the issues - it's very complicated. This David seems a nice guy who has a weird haircut, travels a lot and talks about his trips on his YouTube channel, twitter, website ... all the right things that make a person/business legitimate, nowadays. So, David goes to Roma and then to Sant'Eustachio, has a coffee and shoots this video. Click HERE to watch the video. He somehow found us and linked video to video. I still don't quite understand, but, what the heck! David's video is lovely and I approved! We might even meet, one day.

Italian Sounding Food Products. Enough is Enough!!!

The Republic of Italy is getting serious at defending food made in Italy? We hope so. About time! 

We and other importers of Italian food were invited, the other day, by Luca Zaia, the Italian Minister of Agriculture, at Del Posto. Mr. Zaia came with a basket full of items he purchased at a nearby store full of "Italian Sounding" products. He said that out of 10 products with a made in Italy label, only 1 is really made in Italy. He promised that his Ministery will even seek legal action against any manufacturer/merchant who sells "Italian Sounding" products. 

May Justice be done!