Denis Casella is our master baker and supervises the production of everything that we make.

Denis was born in Italy, into a bread-making family. He started to learn about bread from his father, who had a pizzeria, and his uncle who still has a bakery. As Denis puts it, he grew up dusted with flour!

With that background he soon became passionate about bread and, after moving on to more formal studies, he eventually fulfilled his ambition to become a professional baker.

In the meantime, travelling around Italy and the rest of the world, Denis often wondered why he couldn't find bread or pizza that had the good tastes that he'd grown up with.

He realised that the causes were the techniques used by most modern bakers to reduce the amount of time needed to make bread, especially by shortening the fermentation process, combined with the use of inferior ingredients. In short, bread-making had too often become about producing a product that was quick to make and cheap to buy, rather that tasty, healthy and reasonably priced.

Along the road from apprentice to master baker - a road that took him around Europe and as far afield as Japan - Denis sought out recipes and techniques that combined modern understandings of the bread-making process with an approach that harnesses the very best flavours and textures.

Denis says "One of the main reasons why we established Casella & Polegato was to be able to use only natural flour and high quality ingredients. I'm always looking for perfection. I want our products to be delicious and healthy while also lasting well without the use of artificial agents or chemicals - just skill, patience and passion."