Ci Sta, the first Italian pizzeria made by a benefit corporation, born from an idea of Nico Grammauta

Two pizzerias opened in Milan in just a few months, one in Verona and the goal of being the first Italian pizzeria to change its legal form into a benefit corporation – those for-profit companies that include positive impact on society and the biosphere in addition to their profit goals, ed.– and obtain official certification: these are the goals achieved in little more than a year by Ci Sta, the project conceived by Nico Grammauta, an Italian manager and a leading player in the food retail sector.
With a quick expansion in Italy and Europe, Ci Sta has been included by Forbes as one of the 100 Italian food and wine excellences, both for the design of its premises and its catering offer. In fact, Ci Sta’s menu is full of pizzas in many variations, with typical regional ingredients from the South to the North of Italy, a journey into the Italian gastronomic tradition. The background to all these Italian excellences is a dough made with 100% Italian wheat from organic crops and Neapolis oven perfect heat.

To find out more about this success story, we interviewed Nico Grammauta and asked him where his idea came from: “Ci Sta- Friendly Pizza” was born out of moments of reflection during the first months of 2020. Loving my job and questioning myself on how the offer in food retail should and could change after the shock that the country was experiencing, the answer I gave myself was to pursue a path characterised by choices of excellence, from the product to the selection of the best raw materials and people, understood as collaborators, suppliers and partners.
Why pizza? I have always been in love with this product and, loving my Bel Paese the same way, I think that Pizza is the Italian dish that fully represents us in the values of our popular culinary tradition.

Why did you choose Neapolis?
According to our experience, in the general panorama of electric ovens, Neapolis represents the best existing machine on the market. This applies to both the product and the after-sales service. The choice of the electric oven stems from the research in our restaurants of a high-quality standard for pizza preparation and the ability to maintain a constant temperature during the work shift guarantees us an always optimal performance in the various pizzerias.

What products do you bake with Neapolis?
With Nepolis6 we go for classic pizza. We make around 300 pizzas a day, but of course this is not a completely reliable figure if we consider that today we are still suffering from the state of emergency in which the country is still immersed and which strongly affects the propensity to consume.

What plans have you got for the future?
Our aim is to expand our network of pizzerias both in Italy and abroad over the next few years, and to become Italy’s leading pizza chain. Since May 2021, we have opened two pizzerias in Milan, one in Arco della Pace and one in Brera, and a third in Verona. The main objective, however, will always remain the obsessive search for excellence in raw materials and their processing. Everything else will follow.

“We believe in an ethical way of doing business” is the Ci Sta manifesto, marking the goals that will represent the brand in the upcoming months: reducing environmental impact (by maximising the use of energy from renewable or low-impact sources compared to market alternatives), combating food waste, valorising Italian agro-gastronomic local excellences, supporting charity organisations for the community, and in particular for people in difficulty or disadvantaged, promoting individual talent as the foundation of a culture that encourages teamwork. In a nutshell: environment, territory, supply chain, people, community, product.

Ci Sta

Where: Via Giulio Cesare Procaccini, 60 e Via Castelfidardo angolo via San Marco, Milano – Via Leoni, 4 Verona