Introducing a foreign brand to America can be a tricky endeavor. But the CEO of Fratelli La Bufala (Italy) said American dollars and global presence make it well worth the trouble.
Miami Beach, FL– Though he is CEO of a successful international restaurant chain, Luca D’Angelo of M6 USA (Fratelli La Bufala) experienced some growing pains when opening his company’s first restaurant in America. With the opening of FLB in Miami Beach, Fla., he’s dealing with everything from increased payrolls to supply shortages, and found there were lessons to be learned when his company stepped off home soil.
Fratelli La Bufala (FLB) is known throughout Italy for its authentic Neapolitan-style pizzas and Italian dishes made with water buffalo meats and cheeses made from buffalo milk. When FLB opened locations abroad (one of its most popular sites outside of Italy is in London with another soon opening in Barcelona), the company managed to find ways to effectively ship the meat and cheeses from Naples. But importing meat wasn’t an option for the United States’ market, so M6 had to get creative.
“We had to establish a complex chain of suppliers,” D’Angelo explained, “and [the cheeses] are imported with great logistic and cost implications, but a bi-weekly delivery was the only way to maintain the flavor of special products like mozzarella, which cannot be appreciated beyond a week from production.”
The company felt that it was not only the ingredients that made for a great product, but also the style in which the recipes were executed. Therefore, FLB also imported pizzaoli (authentic pizza makers) from Naples. These men are not only charged with cooking and training, but they also made sure FLB’s Miami Beach location had a wood-burning brick-oven that would do the job effectively. D’Angelo said the oven was just one issue in a long list of construction codes that are entirely different than the ones in Italy.
But when the restaurant finally opened in early October, weeks behind schedule, D’Angelo and everyone at M6 knew they had created something truly special. “The format is deeply rooted in the tradition of Southern Italy. The challenge is to make people appreciate the original recipes of dishes that have become so popular in U.S.A. but have lost part of their heritage, like pizza. We have approached this challenge
with patience and we are happy to continue educating our customer base.”
Today, D’Angelo said Americans can look forward to finding more locations nearby in short order; the Miami Beach restaurant has exceeded expectations, giving M6 encouragement for growth.
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