Changing course while traveling in a Renault 5
“Do you remember, Andrea, that time in Spain with our Renault 5? It must have been 40 degrees inside the car, stuck in traffic on the highway. I don’t know how many kilometers we covered with that R5, visiting clients and suppliers across half of Europe. We always set off on a bit of an adventure…”
At the end of the ’70s, we were a law student with the ambition of becoming a notary and a surveyor (Andrea) about to graduate in architecture. Love at first sight in the early ’80s and marriage in 1985 took us away from our original dreams, but along a path that gave birth to Manta Foods.
We are practical people who made their way with courage, a lot of hard work, honesty, and a touch of recklessness. In 1986, we decided to change course and abandon our plans to take over the business that had belonged to my father-in-law, which was a fruit brokerage for industrial use.
We called it Mantafrutta, and it was based in a 24 sqm office in Manta. It was a tough enterprise; I was young, still inexperienced in the trade, and afraid of making mistakes.
“And that time, for example, when we went to load crates of fruit in Cuneo at 2 in the morning to complete the shipment?… The environment back then was very male-dominated, and a woman involved in brokering deals was not taken seriously. But I never gave up, and with great toughness, I learned the ropes”.
