And then came Angelo Motta. With his panettone marked by the unmistakable M, but above all with one of the inventions that revolutionised the food industry, marking a key step in the habits of Italians. The merendina snack. For every day and every hour.

This is how the entrepreneur had thought of it, a mignon format specialty suitable for the little ones, perfect to put in the school bag and take out at snack time. Enter the Mottino. A reduced version of the panettone was already studied at the end of the 1930s: Motta had the slogan written in elegant italics on all its advertising pages, but the time was not yet ripe.