About us

We did not start with food and then discover the internet. We started with online publishing, and food came later — which is why we take payment security and privacy as seriously as we take the olive oil.

From 1999 to today

It began in 1999, with a website devoted to the typical products of Puglia. There were no social networks, blogs did not exist in the modern sense, and most people were still connecting at 56k. The site found its readers almost immediately: people looking for Puglia — its recipes, its places, its products — and finding nothing organised or in depth.

In 2016 the magazine was joined by an online shop selling typical Apulian products. In 2021 came the B2B store, for retailers and the horeca trade. What began as an editorial idea is now a small network:

• laterradipuglia.com — this magazine, in English
• laterradipuglia.it — the Italian magazine: articles, recipes, itineraries
• laterradipuglia.fr — the French magazine
• shop.laterradipuglia.it — the retail shop
• b2b.laterradipuglia.it — wholesale, for retailers and horeca

How we choose what we sell

The way we select the products in our shop is not automatic, and it does not run off wholesalers’ catalogues. We know our producers in person. We visit the farms, we talk to the people who work the land, we taste the products — often more than once, at different times of year, to check that the quality holds — before anything goes into the catalogue.

That takes time, and it is exactly why our catalogue is not enormous. We would rather have few products we are sure about than many we are not.

The same rule applies to what is not food. Cutrofiano, where we are, is one of the three Cities of Ceramics of Puglia, and the pumi and ceramic balloons we sell are turned and painted by hand by potters we know, in the workshops of this area.

The problem nobody likes to name

Large-scale retail tends to keep prices to producers artificially low, imposing margins that make it almost impossible for a small artisan to stay competitive while keeping quality high. Many small Apulian producers are left with two options: lower the quality to cut costs, or leave the market.

We offer a third way — a direct route to market, at prices that recognise what artisan work is actually worth. This is not philanthropy. It is a model that works when the customer can tell the difference between something made well and something made quickly.

When we take on a new producer we look at the quality of the raw materials, the production method, the absence of unnecessary chemistry, and respect for the seasons. We also look at whether the business is economically sustainable — because a producer who cannot survive in the market cannot go on doing what they do, and everyone is poorer for it.

Customers all over the world

International shipping has not turned out to be the obstacle we expected: many customers abroad are willing to pay a little more to bring home the real flavours of Puglia. We read that as a sign of what they think those products are worth.

Where we are

We are in Cutrofiano, in the province of Lecce, in the heart of the Salento — the southern tip of Puglia, the region Italians call Puglia and English speakers often call Apulia. Both names are correct: Apulia is the Latin form, Puglia is the Italian one.