Pandoro Bauli: we went to the factory where they are churned out (at a rate of six thousand every hour)

The rooms of the Bauli panettone and pandoro factory are filled with different smells from time to time. There is that full of cocoa, which enters your nose with all its sweetness. There is the smell of the oven, and that of leavening, that of butter, vanilla and then yes, the smell of finished pandoros and panettone, which come out of the rollers like orderly rows of toy soldiers ready for Christmas.

Here, at Castel d’Azzano in the province of Veronawhere the Bauli headquarters are located, Christmas has already arrived for a while, well ahead of the calendar. After all, this is where they come from 38% of pandoros and panettone purchased at Christmasa segment in which Bauli is the market leader. Therefore, already in autumn, the factory is in fibrillation.

The machines knead, turn, roll out, cook, bake, and the scent is exactly that of Christmas morning, multiplied by all the Christmases in the world.

It all starts in a room, the one where he rests Future. Futura – as the TV commercials tell us – is the mother yeast with which every Bauli product is made. Every day it is refreshed with water and flour 24 times, once every hour. He is the real star of the production, because it is from him that everything originates. It is no coincidence that Bauli even dedicated it to him a short film, written and directed by Pietro Castellittowhich tells the story of the rescue of Futura, Bauli’s sourdough starter, from the fire that involved the factory on 9 October twenty-eight years ago.

Then, the ingredients are added to the dough, and here the production of the great festive leavened products begins. The numbers are impressive: in this period, in which work is at full capacity, approximately three thousand panettoni leave the factory (on two lines) and 6219 pandori per hour. Each of these has risen in a cell for the entire time established by the company (eight hours for the panettone, ten and a half hours for the Bauli pandoro), before ending up in the oven, being cooked, and coming out into a room prey to the final scent, that of freshly baked things.

There is also a room in which the absolute protagonist is the smell of chocolate: the mixture here is dark, and is that of an absolute novelty, the Panmoro. An all-cocoa pandoro, with chocolate chips and a dusting of cocoa that replaces that of icing sugar. A younger brother of the classic Pandoro, Bauli’s flagship product, in which however the company seems to be investing a lot this year, delivering to the market a more delicious novelty alongside the more classic products and the – many – more elaborate ones, which are whizzing around in everywhere on the production lines, passing before our eyes until arriving in their packages, which will then be shipped to supermarkets throughout Italy. Covered panettoni, brioches, leavened products filled by machines that insert doses of cream inside, which will then be found at the opening of that ritual that is repeated every Christmas, every year, on every Italian table. In some ways, it is impressive to think that everything starts from here, and moves everywhere, always replicating itself. As happens with sourdough, after all.

Francesco Piras

Alongside the pandoros, a myriad of croissants run along a very long treadmill, which first were little triangles of dough, and later become the object of many children’s breakfast: here the numbers are even more impressive. The very powerful croissant line produces them around 42 thousand an hour. 20 thousand for that of Good morning, one of the most iconic products born here.

But for now there is no competition: the smell, from now until the next few months, will remain that of Christmas (and if there is any panettone left over, we always know what to do with it!).