February 2019 – Quality street food with specialities in the best Tuscan tradition and local ingredients. These are the selling points of “Tuscan Street Food” – “La Toscana Slow arriva con l’Apino! (Slow Tuscany comes to you with the little Ape!) – which offers tasty food prepared in loco and served on board a fleet of on-the-road Piaggio Ape vans, which can be seen daily in Pisa, Pontedera and Bolzano. Tuscan Street Food also offers catering services for private events (weddings, birthdays, parties, anniversaries, etc.). Set up in 2018, the business has quickly gained a reputation for style and quality.
WHO ARE. “Behind the wheel of a fleet of Ape vans...to serve up a piece of Tuscany”. “Tuscan Street Food – explains the company website – is a trademark guaranteeing the geographical provenance of the products, to underscore the link between food and territory, and the quality and environmental sustainability of the ingredients we choose. We organise and take part in cultural events, serving traditional Tuscan food, all carefully prepared and served aboard Piaggio Ape vans. We bring you the best of Tuscany’s food and wine, and take part in and organise itinerant events, shows and public and private initiatives.
We integrate our offer with events of artistic and cultural interest that are strictly ‘Made in Tuscany’. In other words, we provide a street food version of ‘Made in Tuscany’, to enhance produce and producers and re-create the timeless bucolic atmosphere of the Tuscan gastronomic culture.Slow Tuscany comes to you with the Ape! Piaggio’s traditional small van, the typical means of transport for small businesses in the postwar period and still widely used by farmers and artisans in Tuscany today (and in the rest of Italy and abroad, ed.), is our symbol and our inspiration.
The Piaggio Ape is a standard bearer for the region and for the Km 0 concept. Our Ape vans are equipped to sell gastronomic products, without losing sight of tradition and with close attention to practicality. Using our traditional recipes, our cooks prepare the food directly in loco to retain fragrance and flavours. Our intermodal logistics system means we can take the ‘Tuscan Street Food Show’ over regional and national borders, to important events organised by institutions, private associations and corporate organisations.”
PROJECT STRENGTHS. Entrepreneur Alessio Antonelli, together with Antonio Nicastro and Dario Milano, tell us about their thinking: “We want to promote the great resources of our region, and of the province of Pisa in particular. To do this, we launched our business adventure with the Piaggio Ape. The flavours of our region can be found not only in the Ape, but also in our dishes, all devised by our chef Alessio. We use only fresh produce: every morning we go out to buy cold cuts produced in Lavoria, organic vegetables from the Pisan countryside, freshly baked bread. We want to create a network because we know that a fundamental factor in the success of a project is working together with people who share our goals: to give value to our region’s excellences. So we are building a network with our suppliers (farms, cooperatives, bakers, butchers, fisheries, food and wine producers, etc.), with people like us who offer good food, and with the region’s hospitality locations.”
THE QUALITY OF TUSCAN FOOD. A broad selection of tempting specialities are offered, depending on seasonal availability. Examples include, beef tartare with creamed walnuts, ricotta from the Garfagnana, salad leaves and baby fennel, and Tuscan wholemeal bread; roast beef, cauliflower and caramelised onions; schiacciata filled with Tuscan salame, field greens and fresh caciotta cheese; sausage and pecorino cheese on creamed pumpkin with turnips cooked in wine and bay leaves: seasonal vegetable soups (cauliflower, pumpkin, aubergine) and ribollita; a roll with Tuscan oil, black cabbage, fresh pecorino cheese and creamed cauliflower; chickpea soup with porcini, walnuts and thyme; and much more, including fish dishes.
CONTACTS: through the Tuscan Street Food social media channels, twitter and facebook, and the website (www.tuscanstreetfood.com), to “follow the Ape vans” and try the specialities made in Tuscany.
Tuscan Street Food is taking part in the next “Primavera d’impresa” event (21 March 2019, Prato Chamber of Commerce), a meeting for businesses, government agencies, schools and universities, sponsors, organised to put the spotlight on creative innovative businesses.
INFO:
www.primaveraimpresa.it