Where you can learn about marketing from a butcher

People always think only of his meat specialities and everything that goes with them (and that’s no small thing), but his little butcher’s shop in Panzano has long since become just one part of a veritable empire in the business sense.

 Even his slogans are enough to make you envious – ‘carne diem’ (carne = meat). His first protest came when Europe decided to ban the T-bone steak – and anything containing bones from cows older than one year. Butcher Cecchini protested in his own poetic way – in March 2001, he organised a funeral for the steak in Panzano. A commemorative plaque was hung on the wall of his butcher’s shop, featuring a colourful picture of a steak and the inscription: ‘In memoria of the Florentine steak’. And so he drew reporters from all over the world to the sleepy village. 

Who, what, how?

Who is Cecchini? 

 A seventh-generation butcher who actually wanted to become a vet and studied to become one, but when his father suddenly died, he took over the family business in Panzano.

Where is Panzano? 

In Tuscany, in one of the most beautiful parts of Chianti near Greve in Chianti. Small, intimate, situated on a hill with a stunning, picture-postcard panorama.

This is exactly how you imagine Tuscany to be.

And Cecchini has understood that too.

He combines good food – you can also enjoy meat-free meals at his restaurant – with everything that foreign tourists associate with Italy and Tuscany. He arrives at the restaurant with his staff – they honk their horns, drum and sing – top-class entertainment.

The village thrives with and thanks to Cecchini – it hasn’t been ‘just’ his butcher’s shop for a long time now; his family took over the letting of local holiday flats, a little further on is the restaurant, and on the way there is the burger van, which even manages to serve coaches – and where I ate one of the best pappa di pomodoro. The shop stocks various specialities. Such as the slightly sweet paprika mustard served with meatloaf or steak – it’s because of this that I’ve come, despite the unbelievable 31 degrees on this penultimate day of September, and I’m taking a small supply home with me straight away. It’s half past two; Cecchini is standing outside the shop with a few staff members, his moustache smiling as he greets everyone warmly. You can hear a woman’s voice: ‘Dario!!’ I love you!” Just like a pop star.

Back home, I’m quite astonished to realise that Cecchini is 71 years old. He publishes recipes, travels around Tuscany and showcases his specialities in a select few restaurants; for instance, when he took part in a symposium in Copenhagen with more than 500 colleagues from all over the world, he concluded his presentation with quotations from Dante’s *Inferno*.

 He has been appointed an ambassador for Tuscan culture.