GICO’s 50 YEARS | The 1990s: industrial food and ‘advertising’ cuisine

In the 1990s, the media acquired new space in consumers’ daily lives, regularly entering Italian homes. At the same time, food in the large distribution chains, communicated and advertised through these very channels, consolidated its position and diffusion throughout the country. 

Due to advertising spots, press campaigns and posters, Italians began to increasingly prefer industrial products manufactured on factory assembly lines and, to many minds, ‘perfect’.  In this decade, ‘local’ products were gradually abandoned, considered ‘provincial’ and therefore inferior.

GICO EQUIPMENT IN THE 1990s

Just because of these new trends, GICO added to its more traditional ‘in line’ self-service equipment, designed mainly for catering services and company canteens, a new ‘free flow’ self-service line.

The layout of this equipment was designed with a number of themed islands, so that each customer could choose his or her own menu and move comfortably in the dedicated space.  This was a new distribution method, practical and functional, that was immediately adopted by large international hotel chains.  The aim was to propose a new concept of catering, eliminating table service without penalising quality, and for the first time integrating islands into the dining room decor.

ITALY AND HAUTE CUISINE IN THE 1990s

It’s also transition time for haute cuisine: Matteo Baronetto, now Chef at the Turin Ristorante Del Cambio, remembers that in 1992 he was working in a pizzeria near his home and just two years later was with Gualtiero Marchesi, who had moved to Albereta di Erbusco.

Marchesi was well-established and influential.  In the kitchen here, a stone’s throw from Lake Iseo, the chef is Carlo Cracco (who has recently turned on the burners of his new GICO kitchen at Ristorante Cracco Portofino). With him are Andrea Berton, Riccardo Camanini and many cooks who would make Italian food great in the third millennium.

To support cooks in implementing changes was GICO’s aim in the 1990s. In this decade a series of new products was launched, accompanied by the claim ‘An extra note’.  These were suspended units with a depth of 70 or 90 cm. The immediate great plus was that the units were extremely easy to clean, an avant-garde solution for the times that has always been one of GICO’s fundamental values.

This is also the period in which 110cm deep central through units came into being. They were unique of their kind for strength, functionality and finishes, aspects our company has always pioneered. They comprised a central, modular island around which staff could move independently and on which it was already possible to create optimal workflow.

WATER AND FIRE, HARRY’S IS BORN

In this same line, the special needs of Arrigo Cipriani, Patron of Harry’s Bar in Venice led Luigi Ongaro to make a new special gas range, for the first time studied and designed to meet the requirements of a customer.  The specs were for high performance equipment to meet the needs of express cooking, ideal for à la carte dishes, simultaneously using a number of different pans of varying shapes and sizes for diverse preparations on the same cooking hob.

This was the origin of our equipment named Harry’s: a single sectional grid, suitable for cooking several different dishes, which cleverly united two essential elements in the kitchen, fire and water.  The system was absolutely original and unique and combined high performance and ease of cleaning, for extreme hygiene.