Our story begins here, from a true Neapolitan moving to Salento and living there for many years, Giovanni Martinucci. Tinker as a first profession, chauffeur as a second job, Giovanni, usually accompanied musical bands for parties and local festivals. Having to wait the end of concerts, he reinvented himself as an ice-cream maker, buying a rudimentary ice-cream machine: an iron bowl, ice and salt, so to make time go while waiting.
Thanks to the typically Italian entrepreneurial spirit of the Forties, the young man attends local fairs and festivals with his equipment to make spumoni ice-cream, placed into the copper moulds made by himself.
With the same enthusiasm, he was followed by his son Rocco. It is an immediate success to such an extent that the arrival of father and son with their sweet creations become the event of local fairs and festivals.

Rocco Martinucci, thanks to the fine art learned by his father Giovanni, combines new culinary experiments with the success of its craft production, and starts up his activity in the world of catering and pastries in 1950, the year that appears in our logo.

Between the Sixties and Seventies, Rocco has the intuition to open several stores in Salento, as the well known pastries and ice-cream shops in Santa Maria di Leuca and Lido Marini, important places where we still are today with our stores.
His wife and children supported him in this adventure, learning from Rocco the mastery of his craft and, above all, the passion for work.
Thanks to his determination and the help of his family, the creations of Rocco Martinucci quickly become a landmark for the whole territory.

After the death of Rocco, the 18th December 1981, his children pick up the baton and made the most of their father’s teachings.

In 1984 we decided to combine the traditional production, which is present in all our stores, with the industrial production of cakes, frozen desserts and ice-creams, always with the same clear values of quality, tradition, innovation and respect for the land that accompany our daily choices.

Our industrial production, oriented both to product quality and consumer satisfaction, is today appreciated on the major world markets thanks to the high percentage of exports.

Inauguration of the second production plant and separation of production of industrial ice cream products.