The Baby Zilli Story…
Aldo Zilli is one of the UK’s most popular celebrity chefs, restauranteur and author of a number of best selling food books (including his most recent publication ‘Zilli Green’). He was born and raised in Italy in a small village called Teramo. He was one of 9 children and was born into a working class family.
Food was a very big part of Aldo’s upbringing and in this respect he had a typical ‘Italian’ upbringing. Meal times were sacred and a very big family affair. Fresh home cooked food was a way of life and despite leading a poor lifestyle Aldo was raised on fantastic, fresh homegrown food. “I remember gnocchi being one of the first foods that I was given as a youngster and how much I loved it” Aldo recites.
I remember gnocchi being one of the first foods that I was given as a youngster and how much I loved it.
After travelling around Europe gaining experience, Aldo moved to England to pursue his career as a chef. By 1993 he had opened his first restaurant in Soho and by 1996 he become a popular TV chef. On the birth of his second child (Rocco) Aldo started to take great notice of the food that was available commercially for his young son. “I was horrified by the bland tastes of the baby food available in the supermarkets. This was not anywhere near the quality and taste of food that I was raised on and I therefore did not want to feed my children this” Aldo recalls. It was at this moment that Aldo decided that he would create his baby food for his children. After weeks in the kitchen Aldo had created a number of fantastic baby food dishes. Family and friends with children then all started asking for the recipes and began to rave about what Aldo had created.
In 2008 Aldo met serial entrepreneur Dean Dunham. Dean was also a very big family man with 3 young children. Dean also owned childrens day nurseries around the UK and therefore had a great understanding of the needs of babies and young children. For 2 years Dean and his team had been researching the baby food market and had begun to develop a number of ideas. Aldo and Dean therefore combined their efforts to create a baby food range like no other. It had to be organic, full of 100% goodness, contain no rubbish and taste so great that even adults would eat it..
Two years later in 2010 the Baby Zilli Range was born. Dean explains…
“Aldo and I are so excited about Baby Zilli, due to the sheer greatness of Aldo’s abilities and the determination and skill of the entire team around us (including dieticians, nutritionists, etc) the Baby Zilli range tastes so great that it is literally good enough for ‘Mamma and Papa to eat’, hence our strap line”.