Dello Mano is a family business, created by Deb & Bien Peralta in 2006.
We're a family committed to protecting food made slowly, using time honoured traditions and ingredients. Our business is fuelled by our passion and hardworking team dedicated to providing real food, no fakes and a true dedication to creativity. With our love of real chocolate brownies, we pioneered the Australian Brownie revolution by leading the way with a luxury brownie. We created Australia's first luxury brownie gift box with a creative twist of homestyle cooking packed in a elegant and beautiful gift box. We launched our online store in 2006. Everyday we make our contribution to protect the art of real food.
Deb + Bien Peralta
We commenced Dello Mano for the love of slow, real food and the challenge of illuminating the brownie. Our business values are about the spirit of our food and our business - not simply financial. We built a brownie business where none existed before and so our motivation has always been creativity, soul and happiness. We are about the people in our business - our team, our family, our customers and our suppliers.
The Dello Mano story is about brownies but it is as much about passion, love and courage.
We started and continue to handmake our brownies and other delcious morsels based upon three key Dello Mano tenants:
1. We wanted to make real food - not reduced by cost or over processing - our food remains real
2. We wanted to create a happy work environment
3. We want to support and foster real creativity
Some of our differences also include:
We've always used free range eggs delivered fresh from farm to our kitchen. Our eggs are cracked at the time that we bake. No bags of processed eggs pre cracked - egg performance is dependent on freshness. We use free range eggs from a farmer that we have known for years and believe strongly that our eggs provenance is happy chickens bathing in Queensland sunshine.
We use only Belgian Chocolate. We use significant quantity for the chocolate to be a main ingredient in our brownies not just something we use in small amounts.
We are committed to understanding our chocolate provenance. We have travelled to Ghana in Africa to view the entire Cocoa bean process from forest plantation through to quality processing and then traced beans through to the port where the beans are shipped to Belgium.
Further we travelled to Belgium to the chocolate Processing Plant and inspected the bean process from port to final blocks of chocolate.
hreat quality Honey is like food gold. We are privileged to source our honey for our brownies, direct from the bee hive and have it received directly into our kitchen. The bee hives are located on top of Hutchies office building in Brisbane, harvested and delivered directly to us, resulting in superior quality and flavour.
We use only real butter. There are lots of cheaper alternatives however we are firm believers in that saying "only butter, butters". We donot entertain cheaper oils or undesirable fats.
We do not use preservatives. We believe strongly that food should be natural - no preservatives added. Cookies should not have 12 month shelf life - if they do they are not cookies. We can say from experience that It is so much more difficult to make a business without preservatives - many shop keepers rely on long shelf lives. Only those really committed to real food will manage foods with shorter shelf lives. The commitment to no preservatives and shorter shelf lives is indeed a commitment.
We donot use premixes. These premixes are bags of dry materials commonly used in the food industry to make items like muffins. Usually these bags contain additives and do result in higher, puffier baked products. Although the baked results are physically bigger, they usually lack flavour.
Our muffins for example are crafted from real eggs, real buttermilk and real flavours. They have simple ingredients and although not oversized they are extremely tasty and wholesome.
All of our food is made in small batches as this protects the food quality. Large processing plants require recipe modifications to accomodate the process and this often impacts the overall product integrity.
At Dello Mano we keep our batches small and in doing so, we protect our recipes and the quality of food that we produce. Our brownies, cakes and biscuits are artisan in their preparation.
We handmake our produce using real recipes and time honoured methods. Our processes take time and are not shortened in order to speed up the process. We believe in protecting the tradition of real chefs and dedicated cooks who also support the process. In this day and age it is not easy to suppot the artisinal process and it really does require our peope to also share the dream of protecting real food and real methods.
We are committed to quality of our produce. From the beginning we developed a brownie recipe and processes that was destined to offer the hightest quality. We set out to raise the bar of brownies in Australia and we have never compromised on quality. Our recipes remain the same as when we first launched the brownie gift back in 2006.
Our brownies and other morsels are produced by hand using natural ingredients and so there are minor deviations in appearance however quality is never compromised. Our brownies and cakes are real.
We were bold in our original brownie innovation. At a time when cupcakes and macrons were all the rage, we set out to reinvent the brownie in Australia. We developed a range of Luxury Brownie recipes and in doing so ignited an interest in brownies and created a new brownie market segment.
The Dello Mano recipe is unique and has really contributed to creating our difference. Our commitment to innovation has always been part of what we do. We launched Australia’s first gluten free brownie gift back in 2007. That year we also launched the heart brownie for Mothers Day 2007 and in doing so opened up new markets for the brownie heart shape and occasions. We innovated the Christmas Pudding brownie in 2008 and in with it created a new brownie gift opportunity as well as a convenient and alternative for Christmas entertaining. We launched the brownie tarts in 2011. Since then we have developed a range of Christmas brownie flavours.
We dedicate significant resource to all of our brownie recipes. As we only use natural ingredients to flavour our brownies, each new flavour takes significant time to test and ensure that our brownie integrity is protected.
We don’t follow fads. We created brownies as market leader at a time when there was no focus on brownies. The market will always follow trends just like fashion, however at Dello Mano we don't follow fads. We create handmade produce that we're genuinely interested in and love; we dont make things because it is a fad or driven by financials.
At Dello Mano we dont add processed foods - if we are to use a cookie it would be one that we have crafted and that we know does not contain additives or empty food values. Loading up produce with processed foods is not part of our ethos. We left the processed food business to create real food and believe keeping it real is about resisting such trends.
We have from the beginning been in business for reasons that go beyond the bottom line. Of course every business needs to make money to pay the bills however our primary driver has always been our dream. We started our brownie business because we believed in real food made by real people. We have been committed to that brownie mission from the beginning. We always used great ingredients even when we couldnt afford the expense and we continue to push and improve on our quality. We didnt go into the brownie business for any other reason than to build a brand based on the dream we had to craft beautiful food.
We are a small business family. Our children have been working in the business since they were tiny. As a family we made a commitment to our mission and what we set out to do. With long hours and many family discussions we all continue to be driven to do what we set out to do. Our family extends to our team and all those extended family and friends that have given to our dreams over the years and helped create Dello Mano and our brownies.
We strongly believe in forging relationships with our customers and clients. We find those that support Dello Mano have so much in common with us as people. Their own commitment to quality, real food and supporting small family business are the criteria our clients use to make buying decisions. We really believe that a deep, philosophical alignment with our customers makes our business values.
We are in this brownie business because we wanted to bring happy moments to people. Offering a personalised and real service is integral to our existence.
Over the years we have worked to create a trustworthy Dello Mano. We offer a 100% money back guarantee.
We are motivated everyday to follow our Dello Mano mission and live our values. Creating the best brownies will continue to be a huge part of what we do.