ABSTRACT
Calisto Tanzi was born in 1938 in the village of Collecchio in northwest Italy. Within the first two decades of his life, Tanzi endured Benito Mussolini’s oppressive fascist regime, the Nazi occupation, the Allied invasion, and Italy’s postwar economic collapse. And if that wasn’t enough hardship, his father’s untimely death forced Tanzi to withdraw from college, ending his dream of becoming a professional accountant. Tanzi returned to Collecchio following his father’s death and assumed
control of the small business started years earlier by his grandfather. Tanzi Calisto e Figli-Salumi e Conserve (Tanzi Calisto & Sons-Cold Cuts and Preserves) produced processed foods such as cured meats and canned tomatoes. As Tanzi examined Italy’s economy in the early 1960s, he saw greater opportunity in dairy products than in meats and vegetables. Two years after taking over the family business, the 23-year-old Tanzi built a small pasteurizing plant and began peddling milk door-to-door in nearby Parma and the surrounding towns.
