Italy, rich with culture and home to countless culinary traditions, is the inspiration for several businesses that have recently flourished here in Australia.

Valentino Rossi. If you don’t know who he is, you are not from this world, believe me. He is not an icon; he is “the icon” of motorcycling. Not just because he has signed the highest number of wins in the modern Moto GP era and the most podium appearances in the history of this sport, but because of how he wins.

The first time he landed in Rome, he burst into tears of emotion. He was a recently graduated 23-year old. He’d bought his ticket to Italy with his meagre savings and he didn’t even know why he was going, but he went and fell in love. A love that is renewed each time he goes back, as if he had lived there in a previous life and is simply going home.

She has a warm smile, curious blue eyes and she walks as though she’s gliding gently over the floor. Years have passed since she was last on a catwalk, but it seems that hers is a gait you never lose.

In 1934, Nino Borsari landed for the first time in Australia to compete in the Centenary 1000: a cycle race that was part of the Centenary of Victoria celebrations. He didn’t know he was shaping his future and the history of the bicycle trade in Melbourne. Several other European and international cycling champions came to race over the seven stages, covering 1,773 km, but none of them stood out from the others. Borsari won two sprints in Ararat and Ballarat and finished 5th overall.

As of 2019, Australia’s food industry was our largest employer, with over 2 million Australians employed in growing, moving, manufacturing, wholesaling, retailing and food service. (Photo: Alessandra D'Angelo with her son Sergio and her daughter Ambra)

Life sometimes is more creative than your dreams. For sure Arnie Pizzini couldn’t even imagine what his father’s property would have become in time, but he had an intuition.