The Decora brand was born in 1998 from the over forty-year experience of the De Luca family in the catering and pastry equipment sector.
Interview with Valentina Tafuri, R&D Department at Decora.
Easy Engineering: A brief description of the company and its activities.
Valentina Tafuri: Decora is the brand owned by the Italian company Karma s.r.l., a family company with a long expertise in the Ho.Re.Ca. sector. More than 20 years ago, Mr. Carlo De Luca had the intuition of offering to passionate people who love baking and decorating at home the same quality and the variety of products used by professional pastry chefs. Today the company is also developing a range of products for professional pastry chefs thus elevating its standard of quality and widening its offer.
The company is very well organized with IT solutions 4.0 for both the efficient customer care dpt. and the logistics, a R&D office working all year long to propose new and trendy products, always paying attention to international standards of quality, a marketing team communicating the values of the brand via the main social networks, by exhibiting at international fairs, publishing adv and cooperating with international press.
E.E: What are the main areas of activity of the company?
V.T: Baking, cake decorating and cake presentation.
E.E: What’s the news about new products/services?
V.T: Decora offers a wide range of products but also a whole world of ideas, tips, tutorials, recipes to take the most of its products, to help people, even the less expert, baking and decorating easily.
E.E: What are the ranges of products/services?
V.T: The range of products by Decora is really wide. It includes edible products such as edible colors, flavoring pastes, sprinkles, sugar decorations, edible flowers, sugar pearls, sugar paste, royal icing, flavors, coloring sprays, wafer paper, icing sheets, macaron mix and many others.
And for baking and cake decorating, the selection is even wider, with various lines of baking pans, in anodized aluminum, with nonstick layer, in Gold line range, in silicone, in paper. Many products are patented, among them: the handle of the polycarbonate chocolate molds, cookie cutters, baking pans, tools and equipment. A large number of cupcake cases sets for any festive occasion, cakeboards in many sizes and colors, patented cake boxes, clear and decorate bags for sweet treats.
The company also works for private labels thanks to a flexible organization and the internal graphic designer that is expert in finding the right solutions for customizing both packaging and products. We always support private labels suggesting the best solution to enrich their range and to valorize their label. Thanks to this expertise, Karma s.r.l. has already supplied its products to many important groups and clients worldwide.
E.E: What is the state of the market where you are currently active?
V.T: The market is affected by the sense of uncertainty for the future deriving from the international situation. With two wars starting when the world was about to recover after the Covid-19 pandemic event, people is less prone to spend money, also because of the life-cost increase caused by huge increases in the transports and energy.
As a company, we are always trying to absorb costs increases as much as possible so to continue offering products that might be affordable and that might bring joy and levity to the everyone’s home. In doing this, we always try to cooperate with our suppliers, most of which are long-term partners and with whom we always find the right solution for developing quality products at the right price.
E.E: What can you tell us about market trends?
V.T: The market of baking and cake decorating is affected by trends just like some others. Actually, there decoration with sugar paste is less popular while there is a trend for tarts and traditional cookies.
E.E: What are the most innovative products/services marketed?
V.T: For professionals as well as for home-bakers who want to decorate like experts, the electric turntable, launched at the last edition of Sigep fair in Rimini, allows for selecting the direction of the rotation – clockwise or counterclockwise -, the speed of rotation from 0 to 60 rounds per minute and most importantly, its stand-by button allows for stopping the rotation temporarily and restart without you having to select the direction and speed at every new use of the turntable.
Recently we have launched a line of tart pans with loose bottom with an original design, renovating the classic tart with more contemporary lines. It has been design-patented and is named “Design line”, including round tart pans but also proposing heart and ovals shaped pans.
The company really believes that developing new ideas and protecting them with patents and registrations is an important asset and has registered and patented several products during the years.
E.E: What estimations do you have for 2024?
V.T: It will be important to keep working with the same or even more, enthusiasm in order to spread such passion to our customers. Ours is also a work on inspiration and we are convinced that people will keep baking for celebrating birthdays, new born, weddings and any happy occasion also to exorcise their fears. We think the actual international conjuncture can led people to have the will of spending more time at home, maybe with the youngest or the loved ones, baking together or eating together something that has been hand-made, with all the satisfaction and the love that this generates.
