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Category News

Michel Paquier
Pasticceria Besuschio

FB Clabo Award for Best Digital Communication 2022

In a complicated historical moment, presenting your company on the web and on social media can have a fundamental impact. For several years now, presence in the digital world has been an essential factor for every professional reality, and in a very competitive scenario, increasing one’s visibility, having a website accessible at all times and creating mobile friendly solutions has become an essential principle for any activity. Increasing your transparency, building your brand identity, implementing cutting-edge promotional and sales strategies, based on a system that allows easy identification of well-defined products or services, has become the first step in expanding your pool of users, communicate their corporate values and restart in the best possible way.
And so even the great pastry chefs have landed on the internet: even the most reluctant to come to terms with social networks have had to contend with them, just as the need to set up online sales and home delivery services has prompted many businesses to reorganize the own presence on the internet. For this reason, FB wanted to honor and reward two craft businesses that stood out over the year for their commitment to building a digital identity that respects that of their store. As sponsor of the Gambero Rosso Pastry and Pastry Guide, last November 30th FB met in Rome the two winners for Best Digital Communication, Michel Paquier of the Douce pastry shop in Genoa and Andrea Besuschio of the Besuschio pastry shop in Milan, on the occasion of the official presentation of the Guide, now in its eleventh edition.

The good communication of Michel Paquier

It’s difficult to talk about a restart for Douce Genova. Because she never really stopped. Also thanks to the use of social media and what Michel Paquier, maître pâtissier and Genoese by adoption, calls “good communication on the web”. That’s right, even a professional who has entered the establishment of the most refined Italian pastry, gaining notoriety and greater awareness, has begun to become passionate about the new phygital communication rules, discovering how to make up for forced closures in times of lockdown thanks to alternative sales tools. And it is no coincidence that Michel, on the occasion of the presentation of the Pastry Chefs & Pasticcerie d’Italia 2022 by Gambero Rosso, received the award for Best Digital Communication. A well-deserved and heartfelt award for those who are committed every day to creating careful and accurate communication, calibrated on photos of great emotional impact and pleasant and delicate stories like their specialties.

Sincere tales of a good and delicate product

A communication that plays with taste, harmony and balance, but which also knows how to speak to the heart without too many rounds of words or catchphrases. Stories that reach people with sincerity and that convey all the passion that Paquier puts into his work. Through simple but never banal contents, Michel focuses on what he has most precious: his product, made with love and respect, leading to know the essence of his pastry. Also known to the general public for his participation in various broadcasts for pastry enthusiasts, he has transformed his site into a real e-commerce, increasing revenue and awareness of the Douce brand.

“Digital communication is essential. The lockdown period has accelerated our communication through social media, on which we talk about our products without mincing words, with photos and descriptions. Certainly social networks represent an excellent training ground for developing communication, also for our home delivery, which if it was not once considered, now represents a valid ally.”

Listen to the interview

Besuschio Confectionery's digital innovation.

The lockdown first and then the restrictions have therefore demonstrated, even for pastry shops, the importance of digital communication, convincing everyone to update sites, organize online sales in the best possible way, develop delicious take-away and delivery boxes. After the most critical phase, we returned to the laboratories with the awareness that everything has changed and that it is necessary to give space to inventiveness, without ever abandoning tradition.
Even Andrea Besuschio knows something about it, a complete professional in the art of pastry, firmly rooted in his origins and in his territory, yet able to constantly renew himself through a daily work of study, research, experimentation. Faithful to the long family tradition, made up of classic recipes, travel desserts and large leavened products, Andrea has been able to innovate by creating recognizable web and social settings every day and in line with the lines of a historic and prestigious business, so much so that he too deserves the Best Digital Communication award. All the characteristic features of the Besuschio pastry shop, from the careful selection of raw materials to the care of techniques, from the passion and respect for the legacy of tradition to the careful study and research, are contained in the refined choice of images on the web page. Images that describe all the commitment to guaranteeing the ancient pastry art and that represent the mark of an Italian authenticity made up of wisdom and experience, but also of continuous study and the desire to experiment.

How important do you think digital communication is for your business today?
Digital communication is very important in every sector, especially in ours, directly addressed to the customer who is often curious and wants to know more about the products. Through digital communication, the customer base that can be reached and to which one can communicate one’s passion and tradition is certainly greater.

What services do you offer via digital channels and with what feedback? What other services would you possibly like to introduce in the future?
The website, the online shop and above all the Instagram page, where we offer product information services, photos and videos on our working method and on how our products are made. And then the online orders, both through direct messages on Instagram and through the online shop.
In the future we would like to expand shipments to more perishable and fragile products that require special storage such as pastries, cakes and single portions.

How has the situation we are facing changed your digital communication strategy, if it has?
When the pandemic broke out and the lockdown began in March 2020 we didn’t have an online shop yet, and it was thanks to the Instagram page and the requests of our customers that we organized home deliveries. The online shop started in November 2020 and we were able to satisfy every request more easily. We have always planned to create the online shop, but the advent of the pandemic made it particularly necessary, having given up table service for months and having to satisfy the requests of people who lived out of town or far enough away to not be able to come and buy products. Thanks to sponsorships and publications on Instagram we have achieved excellent results.

What elements did you want to include on the site and in digital communication in general to best reflect the image of your restaurant?
First of all we are a family, and one of the things we hold most dear is our history. This is particularly highlighted on the website, and we have also tried to do the same on the Instagram page, in which we have told our story in serial form, starting from the book that tells about our shop and our family.

Who follows digital communication within the pastry shop? Do you rely on an external agency in whole or in part?
Federica, my son Anselmo’s girlfriend, takes care of our communication. She mainly follows our Instagram page and the making of everything that is posted. She and my son, together with a programmer friend, have taken care of the creation of the online shop and still follow it, updating it with new products and following the shipments of parcels and the relationship with the customer. We have always liked doing things as a family.

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FB Showcases - Gusti Gelati 2021

New trends and great classics: ice cream flavors in 2021

Under the sign of sustainability, the 2021 summer season starts, between tradition and new journeys in gluttony.

Summer 2021.The journey of gluttony starts again with the first warm weather, and the master artisans of the art of Italian Gelato unleash their inventiveness, creating and recreating.

Competitiveness, essential in such a vast world, is a further stimulus to research, and the observatory of HostMilano, the professional hospitality exhibition of the Fiera di Milano (which this year will be held from 22 to 26 October), in his annual report on ice cream and ice cream parlors, he demonstrated how healthy competition leads to innovative and… largely greedy results!

In fact, HostMilano has identified 5 new artisan gelato trends for 2021.

FB Showcases - Gusti Gelati 2021

Summer ice cream trends.

First of all let’s talk about the Free Form, in which milk, which is a traditional ingredient of ice cream in general, is replaced by drinks based on coconut, oats and almonds . A more full-bodied taste, a gamble against tradition. Aren’t you curious to taste the result?

Ah la barrique is a decidedly avant-garde and bold trend, where the ice cream flavors are made with products related to the world of wine and cheese and which, in the Limited Edition line , will offer daring tastes and combinations. Definitely departing from the traditional way of understanding ice cream!

Love is in the air, they said. And, to paraphrase a well-known TV personality, Dr. House, “they say love is essential, but air is definitely more so”. So why not replace water with air when making ice cream? Decidedly ethereal ice creams will be the result of this innovative preparation, thanks to the air injected or whipped directly onto the product. Giving them a soft and delicate texture and offering an incredible sight to the eyes.

Green and supportive instead rides on the needs of our world, with a tendency towards healthy ecology and sustainability and ethical production, in raw materials and packaging. Because you can’t sacrifice our land in the name of gluttony, and you don’t even need to choose which of the two to give up.

FB Showcases - Gusti Gelati 2021

The new flavors of 2021

As for the new flavours, i.e. the gems with which the artisans will delight the palate, forecasts give the majority of those based on superfoods renewed from fermented and probiotics, with original touches such as drops of mint, vanilla, oats, honey and lavender and roasted banana, but also those derived from nature will have their place, and we can already taste the varieties with carrot, rhubarb and various types of honey, assisted by beeswax with instead of thickener and propolis for the purpose of natural antibiotic.

Not to be underestimated, then, the sweet-savory combinations.

We at FB Showcases, however, look forward to hosting these tastes in our showcases, where they will find the ideal environment and best technology to enhance the taste.

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Gelato Day 2021 - FB Showcases

A look at Gelato Day 2021

Gelato Day 2021 is the event dedicated to Artisanal Gelato, an ancient art and food loved by all, to which the European Parliament has named, the only food to have received this honor, a day in its honor, March 24, will be held for the ninth consecutive year.

An opportunity for rebirth

The art of artisanal gelato, in all its facets, is one of the activities that has suffered the most losses during the pandemic. But, as is appropriate in an artisan category that has lived amidst a thousand difficulties over the centuries, hope and resilience are never lacking. The Gelato Day 2021 edition really wants to celebrate these rare qualities, showing everyone that the sector is not only not in crisis, but instead points to a future full of novelties and new delicacies.
In fact, if last year’s edition was in a minor key, relegated by current events to a secondary role in a Europe conditioned, more or less, by stringent lockdown policies, and which therefore had to settle for only virtual celebration, this year the perspective is to take all the innovations that have conditioned the sector and treasure them in the organization of the event.

 

Preparations for Gelato Day 2021

It will therefore be an edition that will be divided between digital events and purely physical events, obviously within the limits allowed by an emergency that currently sets various stakes. Therefore the ice cream shops that will participate in the event, in addition to the classic on-site orders, will offer the home delivery service of their products. This initiative will also be supported in the big cities by the well-known food delivery service Deliveroo, which this year will be the promoter of the European Artisanal Gelato Day.
There will be demonstrations, promotions and events, both virtual and physical, which throughout Europe will aim to promote and spread the culture of ice cream parlors and their artisanal ice cream. A golden opportunity, therefore, to arm yourself with an ice cream cone or cup and indulge in a delicious break from the diet!

Taste of the Year: Mantecado

This year the choice of flavor of the year fell to Spain, and the Iberian nation did not fail to promote its culinary delights with a variety of exceptional flavors and stories enclosed in the Mantecado flavour. An anthology of varieties and tastes, led by a tasty old vanilla cream variegated with orange sauce and dark chocolate decorations.
A set of flavors that want to represent, as mentioned, segments of history and food and wine typical of Spain and the immense Iberian empire which was a crossroads of culinary discoveries and innovations in every field. Here then dominates vanilla, a spice imported by the conquistadors from distant Mexico, with its unmistakable scent, passing through chocolate, which had enormous commercial importance thanks to the Spanish merchants who imported it from the new continent, and finally oranges, produced among the most characteristic of Spain which currently holds the production record at European level.
A combination of sweet and bitter, which wants to play on the union of differences, a characteristic trait of the Spanish people.
A characteristic flavour, a worthy substitute for the Flavor of the Year 2020, the yogurt ice cream with strawberry variegation proposed by the Netherlands.

Who participates and how to participate

The European Artisan Gelato Day was born from an idea of Longarone Fiere and Artglace.
The 2021 edition sees, among others, as partners the Italian Gelato Makers Association, CNA, Confartigianato, Conpait Gelato – Confederation of Italian Pastry Chefs, the Italian Gelato Makers Federation, Masters of Italian Gelato, Ilgelatoartigianale.info, SIGEP – International Gelato and Pastry Exhibition , Italian Exhibition Group Artisan Bakery and Coffee.
Naturally we at FB Showcases also support the event by inviting you to participate.
Gelato shops that want to take part in the event simply need to register on the site www.gelato-day.it< /a>, indicating the initiatives they want to comply with in order to celebrate the most delicious day of the year in the best possible way!

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FB presents the new showcase Amazing

Amazing, the name of the new FB showcase, is already a marker of what is the scope of this display cabinet. Amazing is amazing because it renews the concept of refrigeration showcase, positioning itself as a hybrid between a classic refrigerated display counter and a vertical refrigerated display thanks to its 5 exhibitors plans, while maintaining a compact and attractive styling.

FB does not leave anything to casualty, for all those who need to expose different products, such as pastry and ice cream in the same style solution, Amazing is provided with a connecting element for composing the showcase in a versatile way. The other element can be exploited as a support surface. It connects and furnishes, offering a nice view even from the interior side of the window.

The showcase is striking for its squared shapes that recall the shape of diamonds. Indeed FB Amazing is a furnishing jewel, a must-have design object to emphasize the style and elegance of your bar. The hidden pillars of the showcase is another innovation designed to set the user free from unnecessary bulk views.

FB listens to the latest market trends. The look like diamond traces the most representative forms of design nowaday: hidden uprights set the view free towards the inside of the cabinet, from any point of view.

Amazing is present in three different models: 5T + 3T + / V70 and BT. There are many finishes for back and front panels of the showcase.

Do you want to find out more? Discover this stunning showcase here: Amazing!

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