Heritage
Dante De Vito was born in Avellino, Southern Italy, on the 15th of September 1939. At the age of 19, like so many Italians of his generation, he came to England to seek his fortune and found work on the channel island of Jersey, as a sous-chef de cusine and an amateur boxer.
For the next three decades, Dante worked tirelessly within the food industry, rising to senior positions within a number of leading hospitality and food companies, including the then Trusthouse Forte and BrentWalker group.
By the 1980s, the UK’s love affair with Italian food was in full swing. Increased demand for authentic Italian ingredients, such as Salami Milano, Parma Ham and Parmigiano Reggiano led many of Italy’s major food manufacturers to seek representation in the market. One such company was Luigi Rondanini SPA; founded in Milan in 1929, they had become one of Italy’s leading charcuterie manufacturers. Their managing director Gianni Rondanini and his wife Dada were visionary in realising the potential of the export markets and sought out the best man for the job.
Together Dante and Gianni founded Rondanini UK Ltd in 1989 and in less than 20 years Rondanini has become one of the UK’s most respected food businesses. Today the company is controlled and run by the De Vito family and now also exports Italian foods to Ireland, Czech Republic, Slovakia, Poland, Hungary and the USA. We have a growing restaurant and café division and an active involvement in fresh pasta manufacturing with our partners the Voltan family.
Above all we have inherited a love of the simple things in life: good food, good wine and good company.