Our Story

Forni Ceky S.r.l. is a manufacturer of professional ovens, handcrafted for pizzerias in refractory bricks with legal headquarters in Lograto, Brescia. The company was founded in the 1930s by its founder Francesco Metelli, known as Cechi. The company initially constructed its ovens entirely by hand for bread preparation mainly for home use in the Brescia province. Traditional time honored construction methods required the ovens to be created onsite, where the products were built one brick at a time.

Over the passage of years, when pizzas also began become popular in northern Italy, the ovens made by Francesco Metelli underwent important changes in their materials and constructive methodologies to answer to the demands of new restaurants. The name of the Brescia craftsman made its way beyond the borders of the province due to the high quality of his products, expanding rapidly into the surrounding provinces, the rest of northern Italy and finally throughout the entire peninsula. The excellence of the product is also appreciated in those places historically considered to be the “birthplaces” of pizza, such as Tramonti, Sorrento, Naples and Salerno.

Forni Ceky was founded in the mid 1980s when the founder’s son-in-law, Ugo Dall’Olio, joined the company. With him he brought significant experience from another sector in industrial large scale business management. The first changes took place in the production process, with special attention to a reduction in the time required for the construction and installation of ovens, resulting in the creation of the first modular handcrafted oven in refractory bricks. This new approach allowed separation of the production and installation processes, making it possible to store semi-worked items that could be installed at any moment within a single day. This change increased the company’s productive capacity and implemented resources more than five times over, all while maintaining the same product quality and guaranteeing consistent results.

The new productive processes included construction of the first laboratory, a 500 m² facility in the Trenzano municipality adjacent to the owner’s residence. Another winning stroke of intuition was the design and creation of the first gas burner positioned directly inside of the cooking chamber to replace wood burning, an accessory that has revolutionized working with pizza ovens. At the time gas burners were exclusively used as an auxiliary for heating up the cooking surface. Thanks to the presence of a live flame within the oven, the new system has permitted the complete elimination of the need for wood burning heat supply.
In the early 1990s, direct sales of the company’s handcrafted ovens was combined with the retail of correlated products necessary for pizza preparation: new supply contracts were stipulated with companies operating in the restaurant equipment sector. The search for new commercial partners was based mainly on the high quality of the products and the company’s experience in the sector.

In this way, Forni Ceky increased the range of its offered products, satisfying the specific demands of clientele and adding the ability to offer a set of equipment able to meet the needs for the entire pizza preparation process. The growing volume of business resulted in the purchase of a new 1500m² facility, which then became the new legal headquarters of the company. The operating headquarters still remained at the former address. In 1999, the company name changed and Forni Ceky S.a.s. was born, which in four years transformed into a joint stock company in 2003 and assumed the current legal entity Forni Ceky S.r.l. These were years full of significant changes, and were also followed by the entrance of the new general manager, Dr. Andrea Dall’Olio, holder of a degree in finance earned at the University of Bocconi in Milan. The many experiences gained in the international commerce field, especially in regards to companies in the Far East, have permitted the company to assume a global outlook of the marketplace and to stipulate diverse distribution contracts once considered impossible.

The company’s image also underwent a radical transformation: the operating headquarters was moved to a new office complex and a large show room was created to showcase all of the products of the Forni Ceky range. Two new facilities were purchased for the storage of merchandise, bringing the total covered surface owned by the company to 5000m2.

The managerial and administrative processes were completely computerized, and both the place and the instruments used for product presentation were renewed with the help of an advertising agency. The “Pizza Concept” package was created, which offers the client diverse solutions for the creation of an independent pizza corner suitable for any type of environment, making the selection of equipment by the client simple and immediate from the range of proposed products.