A hot counter, rotisserie sold by the piece, toppings on display and resold to the customer. A food shop today has two counters to fill, the cold one and the hot one.
Food shops have stopped selling only raw ingredients. People who walk in at noon want the tray ready, and the hot counter has become a real department: rotisserie, meatballs, fries, a meat main. Then there is the new part. A customer sees the caramelised onion inside the sandwich and asks for the jar to take home. The topping comes out of the back room, goes into the display and becomes a shelf product. We arrive with both counters at once: the cold one with Pausa Spuntino, which we have produced since 2001, and the hot one with rotisserie, meats, fries, ready meals and sauces.
Ribs need slow cooking, so does pulled pork, and meatballs get made early in the morning. Those hours are what keeps the hot counter empty: it is not that you do not want to cook, it is that between the till, the counter and deliveries those hours are gone. Our products arrive already cooked and ask you for minutes, not mornings.
Sliced cured meats, cut cheese, sandwiches of the day. At low volumes the rotation does not cover the expiry date, and whatever is left in the counter at closing does not come back.
The customer sees caramelised onion on the tray and wants it in a jar. To resell it you need a closed format, with its own label and its own expiry date. Without one, you lose that request every time.
Rustico leccese, fried calzone, arancini, cooked and filled meatballs, pan pizza. Next to it sits Pizzella: 230 g in seven flavours and the 350 g Gran Pizzella, stone-baked and ready in three minutes in the dedicated oven, which asks for two square metres. You sell it by the piece, you regenerate it on request, and you do not need a pastry chef.
Slow-cooked ribs, pulled pork to portion by weight, pre-cooked pork shank, shredded kebab, sliced chicken. Professional fries hold up thirty minutes in the display without going limp. And for the evening tray there are single-portion ready meals: lasagne, carbonara, chicken cutlet with fries, from freezer to table in eight minutes.
Fifteen toppings already prepared and portioned: caramelised and fried onions, marinated red cabbage, burger pickles, sliced jalapeños, PomoRosso and PomoConfit, grilled aubergine and courgette, friarielli in oil. Each one has its own closed format with label and expiry date, so the same product serves you at the counter and on the shelf. Heinz sauces cover single-serve for takeaway and large formats for the back room.
Single-portion sandwiches, focaccia and tramezzini in modified atmosphere, four to six weeks of shelf life, with no added preservatives. Ciabatta with cooked ham and edam, Salento puccia, Genoese focaccia, double-filled tramezzino. We produce them ourselves in Sannicola since 2001: you decide the rotation, not the expiry date.
They come in for bread and cured meats. Meanwhile the hot counter fills up: rustico and meatballs are out by eleven, and people in a hurry take them without waiting for noon. It is also when the customer sees what you will have at lunch.
The tray gets built at the counter: a slice of pan pizza, two meatballs, the fries, the sliced chicken. You sell by the piece and by weight, with the single-serve sauce inside the bag. Whoever has lunch with you today is the one who comes back tonight for dinner.
Caramelised onion and semi-dried tomatoes sit on the tray and on the shelf too. The customer sees them filling a sandwich and buys the jar for home. Same product, two receipts.
People coming home from work are looking for dinner already made. Ribs or pork shank with fries, or a single portion and a dessert in a jar. They leave with dinner without going to a restaurant, and tomorrow morning they are back for bread.
