To create exceptional products, the most important ingredient…is time.
My grandfather started working as a baker for hire in the 1920s. Decades later, when I was just fifteen and had finished school, I ended up in his bakery trying to recreate his inimitable focaccia. He chided me in a joking way but with serious intent:

“If you don’t know how to be patient, you’ll never have a beautiful wife.”

Those words shaped both my personal and entrepreneurial development.
In the over twenty years we have been in business, our efforts have always been focused on creating products that respect tradition and old-fashioned expertise.
Fusing tradition with modernity will always be our goal, as we are certain that good quality always pays off.

Antonio Loizzo
Ceo & Founder

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History

The strength of Primoforno lies in its deep roots in the culinary tradition of our area and the history of Pane di Altamura bread, the first bread to obtain DOP certification (“Denominazione di Origine Protetta “, Protected Designation of Origin), recognised and appreciated throughout Italy and around the world.

Pane di Altamura bread was always a staple food for local farmers and was especially important as a source of sustenance for field and farm workers: the bread, thanks to its use of remilled durum wheat semolina and natural leavening, stayed fresh for over 15 days.

Historically, bread in Altamura was made by women at home and then brought to the village communal ovens which, after stamping it with an insignia bearing the initials of the head of the household, baked the bread and then redelivered the finished loaves to their rightful owners.

In the 1920s, the Barile family opened a wood-fired oven, one of the few old-fashioned ovens still in use in Altamura today, and began working first as a communal oven that, over the course of just a few years, transformed into a bakery making its own products.

Today as yesterday, the tradition continues.

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Francesco Barile and his Canadian friend Giancarlo

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Family Insignia