In the last few months, there has been a new addition to the All Greens family, Cured & Raw,
founded by Franco Turano and Maria-Vittoria Pollesel. Cured & Raw deals in speciality Italian
products and brings them directly from independent producers all over the country to some of
London’s top kitchens. Franco and Maria-Vittoria, both with decades of experience specialising in
niche Italian products, decided to combine their expertise in this joint venture to cater to some of
London’s finest chefs. We sat down with Franco and Maria-Vittoria to chat about their backgrounds
and what special products they have been importing.
Tristan Benhamou: Franco, Maria, how did Cured & Raw come to be in the first place?
Franco Turano: It’s simple; it was passion. It’s the thing we have in common, and we took it to
another level by discovering different producers, niche and small, that had a story behind them and
a unique product that we could bring to the UK market.
Maria-Vittoria Pollesel: The passion for food and discovering new products all over Italy is what we
have in common. And we have different backgrounds, of course, and I think our main thing is that
we complete each other from different perspectives.
TB: So what were your backgrounds before founding Cured & Raw?
FT: I had been in the food industry for thirty years; I had other companies, where I was pretty much
doing similar things. But with Cured & Raw, I just wanted to select and curate what I wanted to see
here in the UK. So it was a bit of a challenge to start with COVID and Brexit, but we managed to
secure some really nice, interesting producers and their products for the UK market.
MVP: In my case, I used to work for eight years in a company that produced artisanal cheese, so
I’m really focused on the cheese world. I was looking after purchasing raw materials, production,
and selling and transportation, so starting from 0, searching for raw materials, then selling the
product itself. And then I was looking for a big change in my life, and this opportunity came up. So
this is why I’m here in London today.
TB: What differentiates you guys at Cured & Raw from other Italian speciality produce importers
in London? What do you have that others don’t?
FT: It’s the research and selecting the people behind the products that we sell. So that’s the
difference. And us being passionate about discovering unique people with unique ways of
production.
MVP: The curiosity that we have to discover everything behind the product and behind the people
and the farmers, cheesemakers and butchers who choose this kind of life. We bring a lot of
knowledge of the product, the product category, and the companies we select and want to
represent here.
TB: How did you guys first get involved with All Greens?
MVP: It’s a totally new chapter for us. We were looking for a partner who could help us with the
operational aspects of the business. The storage, the picking, and then the delivery, and we found,
in All Greens, the perfect partner, because we work in two different sectors of the food industry, but
we complete each other. So we can offer to all our clients very good service and a very good
selection of products, whether it’s fruit and veg or charcuterie, and all other stuff that we are
adding to our catalogue
TB: What are some exclusive products that Cured & Raw offers that chefs might want to know
about?
MVP: We have a couple. For the Christmas period, we work with a company called Infermentum,
and we are importing their panettone here. They’re a very small artisanal company.
FT: We have exclusivity to that product in the UK. We also have exclusivity to Maremmana.
MVP: He is a small producer based in Tuscany. He raises his own animals, his own buffalo, and
produces fresh cheeses like burrata, mozzarella, and robiola.
We have Fontana, a small charcuterie producer based just outside the castle in Padova. They are
really small; they work in this ancient place, and if you visit them, the old machines are all still
there. We import a very good porchetta from them; they also have this filetto della timpa, which is
something that they create by combining a classic recipe of charcuterie and adding the lemon
leaves that they get from Sicily.
TB: What’s next for Cured & Raw?
FT: Well, we are continuing the search for new producers to bring to the UK market. Not so much
through trade shows but rather through private visits. We are looking for products that haven’t
been here before and aren’t well known.
MVP: We want to bring more stuff, as Franco just said, and maybe be able one day to take our
clients to visit the companies that we are working with, and the way they work, so that they can
better understand what we are looking for and why we choose those specific producers instea
