Italians take pride in their pizzas, a fact acknowledged all over the world. The smell of freshly baked pizza dough from a traditional wood-fired oven is sure to entice anyone. Finding a wood-fired oven today is a tall order as some places have regulations and with space and manpower tightening, it will take a lot more to run and maintain a traditional oven. This eventuality was foresaw decades ago by Placido Moretti who designed and built the first pastry oven that utilised electricity. Within a few years, the company Brevetti Moretti was established and became the first in Italy credited to forwarding electric cooking technology to a market that only knew the woodburning stove. The Moretti Forni brand was created in 1965 and with business still staying in the family, the company charted milestones in designing the first modular gas oven, producing start-up furnaces to fire ceramics followed by making complementary equipment. Initially sold via direct sales and only to a small user market, the pizza and baking ovens from the company is now present in 120 countries in 5 continents and back home, 4 out of 10 restaurants endorse the Moretti Forni brand of ovens.
PIZZAS IN ALL WAYS… AND MORE!
The round shaped crisp pastry with various toppings is a staple of an Italian’s diet and can be presented in various settings and through its diverse offerings, many pizza makers are able to sell more efficiently depending on its proposition:
• Classic pizzerias for a sit-down meal.
• Pizza by the slice for a quick stomach filler on-the-go.
• Pizza al taglio is baked in rectangular trays, sliced square and priced according to weight.
• Pizza al metro (pizza on shovel) is also sold by weight but does not require a pan to bake.
• Fast-service that usually cater for convenience stores.
• Takeaway and delivery where products must remain tasty and fresh throughout the travel time.
With its foundation in baking ovens’ technology, it isonly natural for the manufacturer to expand its value to other segments:
• Bake foccacias or other items that rise by requesting the oven to be fitted with an uprated internal height of up to 30cm as well as adding a steam generator for products requiring high amount of moisture.
• Bake traditional leavened pastries of various shapes in the integrated static and ventilated ovens from the iDeck range that is space saving as they can be stacked up for more capacity.
• Ovens designed for shops to regenerate frozen products to good quality level.
• serieT conveyor oven that is favoured by pretzel sellers. It is also multi-functional and can be applied in fastser vice establishments to cook meat, pasta and vegetables for clients wanting fresh and quick hot food.
• Caféterias not confined to one type of product or service time will find ovens with 4 sensors handy to set and manage temperatures for cooking different products so that each item is prepared to its best with serieMmultifunctional range.
INNOVATION TO MEET SPECIFIC NEEDS
For each of its product segment, business owners get to select the capacity that suits them best and the Moretti manufacturing plant makes up to 6,000 ovens a year. Based in Mondolfo and 10,000 square metres in size, the process of producing one oven begins in its backyard itself. From the initial working of raw material until the final packaging; 8 production lines are in sync – made possible in the investment of machines with numerical control strictly connected to a design 3D software to cut and stamp the steel. There is also a section for the semi-finished product folding and barr.
Complementing its ovens is the range of preparation equipment in the iDeck category comprising of the iMix (mixer), iK Fork kneading machine, iRoll Pizza Moulder to niche tools like the iC Mozarella cutter or the iQ Boiler for boiling pretzels before baking them.
Ideas are never short in the company with 100 employees; it does not only design and build ovens but thinks outside the square of a stainless steel oven. Drop In Design was developed together with a team of architects whereby ovens are integrated into structures within a restaurant. It works to save or recover unused space and captures the attention of diners as it is unusual for an oven to be upfront. The execution for every establishment will depend on its concept; as the oven’s function remains the centrality and the team focuses on how to best make the entire environment work for ambiance and practicality.
Having moved ahead to electronic ovens before anyone else, Moretti Forni is also acutely aware of how the helpful technology can affect the environment. Hence, MORE FOR GREEN includes the use of high quality materials in building its machines to last; which reduces wastage. Most products are made modular in order to allow add-ons of several units to the existing equipment than buying a new one. With 90% of its products powered by electricity, an extremely low level of emissions is released into the atmosphere alongside the use of green energy in the production process made viable with a photovoltaic system. Clients are able to experience tangible efficiency through innovative solutions such as:
: manages 4 temperatures in one chamber to bake different kinds of food simultaneously
: thermal insulation system keeps oven’s outer surface cool for safety purposes
: automatic regulation of power required according to product
: swinging doors maintain temperature inside baking chamber
: separately manages upper and lower temperatures inside the same baking chamber
SCIENCE AND ART OF PIZZA MARKETING
A slice of pizza is ordered, the customer pays and a successful transaction is recorded. However, is the product tasty enough to warrant a return visit from the customer? As a leading company in the pizza oven segment, it strives for its customers to attain a complete experience by preparing them from the beginning through the PIZZA UNIVERSITY. It is the first and only professional training school to specifically offer preparation in gourmet pizza making, founded because it believes that ‘pizza is precise science’; for example the type of flour used will depend not only on individual requirement but also type of equipment employed. Therefore pizza chefs and business owners need to understand the science of ingredients and how they react to different conditions. It is also important for distributors to undergo training to effectively assist their customers in making the best decision on their Moretti Forni equipment. With a worldwide presence, it actively utilises platforms of social media to engage with customers while a recently launched new corporate website has complete information about its products with downloadable brochures so that customers can peruse and compare the most suitable solution from their workspace. Internet is integral but nothing is more valuable than live interaction and Moretti Forni consistently seeks openings in as many regions as possible and is currently looking at Southeast Asia due to the region’s boom and acceptance to cuisines of the world. Being known as “made in Italy” is its “business card” to opening new markets with Singapore and Indonesia as important samples of this growth. In furthering its vision of being a total solution provider on pizza making, Moretti Forni will be bringing the Pizza University to Batam Tourism Polytechnic, Indonesia in January 2015 catering for students or trainees around the Asia Pacific region.
A favourite in many parts of the world, the Italian’s essential pizza has been re-interpreted many ways to best suit culture and eating habits. Yet, the traditional way of making pizza is still strongly rooted in Italy and is spurred ahead with ideas from Moretti Forni that begun way back in 1946. It is about finding the sync of retaining origins and keeping up with the world’s trends and increased demands through technology.