Pastiglie Leone is a confectionery company based in Turin in 1857. Its founder, Luigi Leone opened his shop in Alba and in a few years he moved to Turin to better serve his customers and the Royal House, very fond of his tablets of sugar. In 1934 the company was taken over by the Monero family, which still carries on the traditions of Piedmont confectionery. Since 1857, the pastilles are the most ancient and characteristic confectionery product of Leone Pastiglie. These small delights are produced with a careful selection of essences, extracts and aromas, to bring out the fragrance and the scent of the various flavors. The pleasant pastel shades of the pads, which make this product pleasing to the eye as well as to the palate, are obtained exclusively with natural colors.
Pastiglie Leone History
The history of Pastiglie Leone began in 1857 in a confectionery near Alba where Luigi Leone produces small, delicious, intense and fragrant pastilles to delight their customers at the end of the meal. The very first flavors are mint and digestive flavors: cinnamon, fernet, rhubarb, gentian to name a few. The tablets are kneaded and formed by hand and dried on the oven's mouth. It is a period of great political changes, a new country will be born within a few years.
Thanks to his success in the Langhe area and the hope of increasing his business, Luigi Leone decided to move. Turin in those years has the fragrant aroma of renewal and chocolate, the good living room of a country that wants independence. With its cafés, pastry shops and artisan confectioners, waiting to become the capital of Italy, Turin is still considered the capital of sweetness. Thus Leo opened the doors of his first shop in Turin: a glittering place of exquisite sweets and the kingdom of the famous Pastilles. The goodness of Mr. Leone soon became famous also in Turin; among the first illustrious customers we remember Camillo Benso Conte di Cavour, greedy for chewy tablets with violet, and the Real Casa, which is why the packs can boast the Savoy flag. On the death of the founder, the laboratory is taken over by historical employees who will manage it only for a few years.
On September 20, 1934 Giselda Balla Monero, then owner, together with his brother Celso Balla, of "La Vittoria", a confectionery wholesaler who, since the '20s, distributed the Leone pastilles on Turin and the province, bought the confectionery Leone di C.so Vittorio Emanuele II, corner of Via Bellini. Mrs. Giselda is courageous, has a strong temperament and managerial audacity, characteristics at the time decidedly out of the ordinary for a woman. A pioneer of female entrepreneurs, Leo sees the potential of a large company in the confectionery laboratory Leone and, to implement her industrial vision, decides to transfer the production to a wider site in Corso Regina Margherita 242. "La Leonessa", so dubbed by her collaborators, invests a lot in new packaging, advertising and creates sweepstakes for the best customers. He will lead the company until the 80s when the helm will pass into the hands of his son, Guido Monero.
The unique and unmistakable "Marca Leone" style that smells of tradition, but also smells of novelty and of the future, is a heritage that the Monero family has been proud to keep for over 80 years. Guido Monero, a man of refined culture and a leading expert in confectionery and chocolate art, is the president of Pastiglie Leone: thanks to his irrepressible creativity, many ideas for new products are born. Gigliola Serpero Monero is the CEO. Daniela, daughter of Guido and Gigliola, as well as Head of Marketing and Communication, is the creative mind of all Marca Leone packaging. In 2006, the company, from the historic C.so Regina Margherita 242 in Turin, for production needs, moved to the new colorful Collegno plant, in via Italia 46.