Speciality Food January 2024

8 @specialityfood David and Peri bought a pallet of bottles, Peri (a talented artist) designed labels, the oil was dropped in the back of a van, and off David went to England, knocking on the doors of specialist food stores. Fortunately, “everybody said yes”. Only three months later, what had started as a cottage industry at the kitchen table was starting to grow, with 60 shops on the books. Seggiano’s Roasted Artichoke Hearts, which remain a top seller to this day, were the second product to be ushered into the fine foodmarket by Peri and David. Sourced from a nearby farm, where they are cooked over volcanic rock, and preserved in the highest quality extra virgin olive oil, David said, “Anybody who knows Seggiano’s roasted artichokes knows how fantastic they are. I was vehemently opposed to them at the beginning. They are rather expensive, but they remain a hero product. Despite their price, we sell them very "I t’s difficult to let go of your baby, but what we’ve achieved in the speciality food world gives us a great sense of pride,” said David Harrison who, alongside co-owner Peri Eagleton, recently sold Italian fine food brand, Seggiano, to Certified Origins. David said they are both delighted to hand custodianship of Seggiano over to the Tuscany-based group, which shares his and Peri’s commitment to quality, integrity and provenance. “We have stayed loyal to independents for the last 28 years, and to say we’ve worked with 40 producers and have 200 products is an incredible achievement. We are confident this is the right decision, and a great deal for all our stakeholders – our staff, our suppliers and our consumers,” he explained. There is an Italian expression which, David said, sums up the very essence of Seggiano – and that is campanilismo – an invisible thread that ties Italian people to the place they are from...its food, culture and community. “Someone fromPuglia, for example, doesn’t go up to the Veneto area to look for products. Why would they? They have everything they need in their territory. This is the beauty, but one could argue, the limitation of Italian food culture.” It took, David said, two English people to seek out and harness that sense of campanilismo inmultiple parts of the country, bringing together the best authentic regional Italian produce, and delivering it to food lovers. Not only in the UK, but also in the USA, which accounts for almost 70% of the company’s turnover. Seggiano is not, as many others, a brand name plucked obscurely from a marketingmeeting and focus group sessions. It’s where this fine food company took root. A classic Tuscan village on the Northern slopes of Monte Amiata – a mountain once sacred to the Etruscans. “It’s an exquisitely beautiful area,” David added, describing layer upon layer of edible landscape – fields of grain gazed over by vineyards, olive groves, chestnut and beech trees. successfully in the US, even with all the extra costs of getting them over there!” A cannymove, early into the brand’s story, was introducing Seggiano-made Pecorino to the gently expanding range. “It made sense politically to shop in our own backyard,” said David. “But selling cheese also gave us the opportunity to go back into the shops once every fewweeks. Oil, artichokes and honey are ‘slowmovers’, you can often get forgotten about, but being able to go back consistently, selling fresh or mature Pecorino, helped us to create a stronger relationship with shops.” Forging these relationships and friendships not only with retailers, but with producers, has been, said David, one of the great pleasures of building Seggiano over three decades. “I love so many of our producers. The warmth between them, Peri andmyself is the best part of the business. We have deep friendships withmany producers all over Italy, and I truly cherish them.” These artisans are people Peri and David have trusted implicitly to deliver products that put the best of Italy on the plate. When a customer, be they a retailer or shopper, spies the Seggiano branding in a store, it is widely recognised as a marker of exceptionality, stamped on everything fromOrganic Basil Pasta Sauce, made in Sicily with naturally sweet tomatoes and award-winning extra virgin olive oil, to the panettone, crafted by a master baker in Brescia with organic eggs and butter, and the more recently launched jars of wholesome soup. “We have never compromised on quality fromday one,” David added, saying they were lucky, in the mid- 90s when the business started, to have very little real competition. Consumers (andmany retailers) didn’t have access to artisanal Italian food, and so the point of difference Seggiano was able to deliver was clear to appreciate. “We had this incredible oil, wonderful honey and artichokes, artisan cheese, fabulous organic pasta. Once we woke up to the fact everything we were selling was best-in-category, it made our life very simple!” So, what’s next? While Certified Origins gets on with the job of continuing Seggiano's legacy, David says Peri's restless creative energy will probably lead her to a deepening involvement in cutting edge techniques for smallholding farming, while he plans on walking Italy’s gorgeous countryside...as well as sculpting pieces from the gnarly roots of olive trees destroyed in the winter of 1985, which he’s collected along his journey. He and Peri met at Ciampino Airport in the mid-80s, and discovered they worked on opposite sides of the same mountain - David, labouring on farms and teaching, and Peri looking after a small farm. They would go on to raise a family together, alongside fostering their own organic olive trees. After nearly a decade, neighbouring olive farmers asked if they’d help promote their products. It was something neither David or Peri had on their agenda. But having the opportunity to help their community, and to show others the excellence of the area’s Olivastra olives and oil, unique to Seggiano and its surroundings, proved irresistible. The oil, said David, is unusual for Tuscany “in that it’s quite delicate. Many Tuscan oils can be bitter and peppery. In those days, the English palate found the creamy sweetness of these olives less challenging.” We have deep friendships withmany producers all over Italy, and I truly cherish them After 28 years, the co-founders of Seggiano are handing the reins of the business over to new owners, Certified Origins Three decades of passion and pride