Carpigiani | ice cream machines

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Bruto Carpigiani (1903 - 1945), considered the noble father of Bologna's packaging industry, was the Director of the A.C.M.A. Technical Office, where generations of technicians who later became entrepreneurs were trained, and the inventor of machines with ingenious solutions, such as the famous “zeta wheel”. In his youth, he had been passionate about engines, so much so that he designed some motorbike equipment and assembled a car prototype by himself. After graduating as a surveyor and enrolling, without success, in the Faculty of Pharmacy in Bologna, he had followed his propensity for mechanics. Recruited in 1927 at A.C.M.A., Bologna's first automatic machines factory, he was soon entrusted with technical management, a position he held until his untimely death.

In the early 1940s, while maintaining his commitment to the company, Bruto, together with his brother Poerio (1911-1982), who had also been working for A.C.M.A.since 1934, in the sales department, had started up his own business: A.R.C.A. was founded in 1941, and Gastecnica in 1944. He had also created a new ice cream machine that improved and perfected the models then on the market. After Bruto's premature death in 1945, Poerio - who in the meantime had resigned from the A.C.M.A. - founded Carpigiani Bruto Macchine Automatiche in 1946, with headquarters in Via Masi, and began producing and marketing the autogelatiera (an automated ice-cream maker) designed by his brother, later replaced by the SED model, which remained in production for 40 years, thanks to which the company had made a name for itself in Italy and abroad. Production had been constantly perfected from a technical point of view and expanded from the automated ice-cream makers to mixed ice-cream machines for ice creams and creams, and then “closed cycle” machines with tap distribution. It was in 1969 that a large new factory was built in Anzola dell'Emilia, to this day the headquarters of Carpigiani, which has been part of the Ali Group since 1989 and whose brand name is synonymous with artisan ice cream throughout the world.

Antonio Campigotto

Text taken from "La Ruota e l'Incudine la memoria dell'Industria Meccanica Bolognese in Certosa", Minerva, 2016. Translation by Lorenzo Rocco, 2022.

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