New York lost an important pioneer in gourmet grocery and Italian imports. On April 12, Nina Balducci passed away at the age of 91 surrounded by family.
Mrs. Balducci helped to build Balducci’s gourmet grocery empire in Manhattan with her husband and family. For three decades, Balducci’s filled the aisles with high-end imports that were hard to find elsewhere, offering prosciutto di Parma, pecorino and Grana Padano to New Yorkers like James Beard, Anna Wintour, and Lidia Bastianich. The design and full-service approach of the store influenced other gourmet grocers to come, including Dean & Deluca, Zabar’s and Eataly.
Nina Balducci designed the first Balducci's catalog, which went from nine pages to 52.
Mrs. Balducci, née D’Amelio, grew up on Long Island and graduated from Simmons College in Boston. She applied her savvy marketing skills and eye for design to the business, which eventually expanded into Baldor Specialty Foods. Among many contributions, Mrs. Balducci created the store’s first mail-to-order catalog with the slogan, “catalogo de buongustaio.” The catalog started off as a nine-page booklet that grew to a 52-page magazine with a national audience.
Mrs. Balducci’s legacy lives on in Baldor Specialty Foods, one of the largest importers and distributors of fresh produce in the Northeastern and Mid-Atlantic regions of the US. Recently, Baldor’s started to sell to consumers through its online store.