Luisa Spagnoli: The Food Entrepreneur who Invented the 'Bacio'

We live in an age in which a woman's entrepreneurial success is celebrated by the media - with admiration, of course, but also with a certain sense of amazement, despite the consistent growth of female entrepreneurs in every sector.

Had Luisa Spagnoli been born today, she would certainly have occupied the front covers of dozens of magazines and become a trending hashtag on Instagram or Twitter: a successful entrepreneur in two sectors, gastronomy and fashion, which at first glance, might seem to have little in common.

^{Luisa Spagnoli in a car}

Luisa Sargentini was born in Perugia in 1877, at a moment in time when women had very limited opportunities to either study or have a career, especially if, like her, they came from a family of few resources: her father, Pasquale Sargentini, was a fishmonger and her mother, Maria Conti, a housewife. At thirteen years old Luisa was forced to leave her studies to help with accountancy and commercial roles in the family business.

Married to Annibale Spagnoli at just twenty-one years old, she adopted the surname that would stay with her for the rest of her life, and took over a grocery store in the Umbrian town with her husband in 1901. The business was a success thanks to those who worked with the Spagnoli, demonstrating marked creativity combined with an entrepreneurial spirit. Their production expanded into jams, sugared almonds, candies and chocolate.

^{A youthful portrait of Luisa Spagnoli}

1907 was a defining year. Together with three fellow citizens - including Francesco Buitoni, the founder of the pasta factory of the same name - the Spagnoli family opened the Perugina company. In just a few years the Perugina management passed almost completely into the hands of Spagnoli and Giovanni Buitoni, Francesco's son, transforming itself from a semi-artisan manufacture to an industrial enterprise.

During the First World War, Buitoni and most of the other men were enlisted and Spagnoli found herself taking over the reins as the production director of an almost completely female workforce. When a decree prohibited the sugar trade in wartime, as a 'superfluous good', it was she who decided to focus on chocolate, proving herself once again the true leader of the company.

^{The Perugina shop in 1919}

Luisa's dark chocolate, 51% cocoa, was born in 1919 from the intuition of avoiding waste. She took the excessively caramelised sugar available in production on the market at such competitive prices in those difficult years, and transformed it into a product accessible to all, instead of a luxury good, as it had been regarded up to that moment.

The manufacturing process of Luisa's dark chocolate was patented, and still characterises Perugina chocolate. Above all, however, it is thanks to Spagnoli that the product became the symbol of the company and a few decades later, one of the icons of Italianness worldwide: Bacio Perugina.

In 1922, Spagnoli realised that the chocolate and chopped hazelnuts that were not used in the company's production were destined to be thrown away at the end of the working day. In order to avoid waste, she created a chocolate with a gianduja heart surrounded by chopped hazelnuts: the shape reminded her of the knuckle of a hand and that's why she initially decided to call it Cazzotto (a 'punch' in English). It was Giovanni Buitoni, son of the partner Francesco, that renamed it Bacio Perugina - disproving the stereotype that women are more likely to come up with romantic and poetic ideas.

^{Bacio Perugina}

Luisa’s husband retired from the company in 1923, which had more than one hundred employees, and it was then that a love affair began between her and Giovanni Buitoni, despite their 14-year age difference – her being 46 her, and him, 32. An age difference that would make people talk even now: let alone in Perugia in the 1920s.

But Spagnoli didn't care, just as she didn't care about any other attempt to harness her in a gender role: although the two never decided to move in together, their affair continued throughout her life. A relationship that also inspired the iconic romantic cards found inside the Baci Perugina wrapping: conceived by Federico Seneca, the artistic director of Perugina, they are said to refer precisely to the secret correspondence between Spagnoli and Buitoni, who wrote love cards during the working day, wrapping them around chocolates.

^{An advertising campaign for Baci Perugina dated 1923}

Spagnoli officially held the positions of board member and director of the luxury clothing sector. But despite this recognition and form of consecration, she never seemed to forget her origins, which were certainly not in high places, and she always showed herself to be attentive to the needs of employees: she opened a nursery school in the Fontivegge plant, and shops within the company to allow her workers to do their shopping before going home; paying for studies and caring for less well-off families - as well as hiring many members; keeping several orphans in the city.

Also in these years came her second intuition, which once again demonstrated how broad her entrepreneurial vision was: she launched into breeding angora rabbits, with whose fur she created capes, bonnets, shawls and boleros. The Luisa Spagnoli creations (then 'Angora Spagnoli') dressed movie stars such as Sofia Loren and Anna Magnani - and some also ended up in some Perugina chocolate eggs.

^{Factory workers in textile factory 'Angora Spagnoli'}

Luisa Spagnoli passed away in 1935. Her children continue the family business, as well as their mother's charity, the Luisa Spagnoli Foundation. In addition to this legacy, Luisa Spagnoli has left products that have become true icons, part of the daily life of many people in Italy and beyond.