Latest news with #Pietro
Daily Mirror
5 days ago
- General
- Daily Mirror
'I accidentally named baby after dog food brand and I don't know what to do'
A mum has been left horrified after her sister told her that the baby name she chose sounds very similar to a dog food brand - and now she's struggling to find an alternative There's a lot that goes into choosing the perfect baby name. You first have to decide whether you want to use something classic or something unique, and then you can start whittling down your choices until you've selected the name you want to give your child. But there are other things to consider, too. Many parents spend time thinking about whether the name they've chosen can be twisted into unfavourable nicknames or if it makes rude words when paired with their surname. Ultimately, the decision is yours, but it's worth considering these factors if you don't want your child to change their name when they're older. One mum, however, is facing a dilemma after her sister gave her some bad news about the baby name she wants to use. She's currently expecting her first child, and while she doesn't know the gender yet, she knows she wants to use Pierina for a girl as it is a "family name" that means a lot to her. But her sister's recent comment has thrown a spanner in the works, as she's now reconsidering everything. Her sister told her that people are likely to mispronounce Pierina as "Purina" - the same name as a popular dog food brand. In a post on Reddit, the mum said: "My boyfriend and I are having our one and only child. We don't know the gender and don't want to know until delivery, so we are planning for a boy's and a girl's name. My boyfriend and I both love the girl's name Pierina. It's a family name on my side and means a lot to me. "My sister, on the other hand, is very against the name and says that everyone will pronounce it Purina like the dog food brand. Obviously, I hate the idea that she is probably right, but the truth is that's not how it's pronounced. "Despite this being a family name for our family, it is starting to spread around, and other family members are cautioning me against this name. Advice needed, please! Is this name awful?" Commenters on the post were also quick to tell the mum-to-be that her choice of baby name wasn't ideal. Some told her to use Pierina as a middle name, while others said to use Piera and keep Pierina as a "special nickname". For relatable parenting tales, tips and offers to help you and your family, sign up for our free Lemon-Aid newsletter here. One person said: "You can use it as a middle name. Your sister is right." Another added: "Don't tell anyone the baby's name options until he/she is born. However, since you have now told us, I need to be honest. That's a terrible name." Someone else suggested: "[I would use] Piera. I suspect that Pierina is a diminutive form of Piera anyway. Then, mum can use Pierina as a special nickname." The mum did not share where she is from, but according to Nameberry, Piera is a feminine name with Italian origins and is a female form of Piero or Pietro. The name comes from the Greek name Petros, meaning "rock" or "stone", and therefore carries connotations of strength and stability. Pierina is an alternative form of Piera, and the "-ina" suffix adds a diminutive quality, essentially making the name mean "little Piera". This means it would work as a nickname for a child named Piera.
Tom's Guide
17-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Tom's Guide
I went to the 'biggest coffee party on earth' — and these 5 coffee gadgets caught my attention
The London Coffee Festival is the highlight of my year, every year. As a Homes Editor who writes about the best coffee makers on a daily basis, I feel right at home surrounded by independent roasters and innovative coffee gear. And if you're wondering how many espressos I drank, I think I blacked out after coffee number 9. But even countless coffees didn't stop me from pining after the latest and greatest coffee tech the "biggest coffee party on earth" had to offer. From AeroPress to Fellow, I saw some seriously cool tech that I can't stop thinking about. Be warned: not all of these products are available to buy yet, and some of them are still in development. But if this coffee tech is a sign of the innovations to come, I think my job's safe for another year. I got to the festival bright and early on opening day and made an immediate beeline for the new Fellow Espresso Series 1. Unfortunately, everyone else had the same idea. The machine was so swamped by coffee obsessives, you'd think we were at a movie premiere. On round 2 though, I managed to get up close and personal with Fellow's first espresso machine. And oh boy, is it even prettier in person. The finish is clean, sleek, modern and surprisingly neat. I was mentally sizing it up, trying to figure out if I had room on my (already laden) countertops. I tried (and failed) to suss out of we could expect a new espresso grinder to go with the Espresso Series 1 from some very tight-lipped Fellow employees. No matter, because the espresso made for me by London's iconic Watch House coffee roasters (using Fellow's Opus grinder) completely blew my socks off. Although I'm more than a little gutted that I'll have to wait around 6 months to try it for myself and see if it deserves a spot in our best espresso machine roundup, it was great to see this machine in action. If you preorder the Series 1 , you can get it for $1,199 plus $100 in Fellow Drops credits. For my fellow Europeans, pre-orders have yet to open. The Pietro is hands-down the prettiest hand grinder I've ever seen. It feels incredibly luxe, too. The cold steel finish and upright construction make it totally fitting for a permanent home on your countertops. Brought to the market by Italian brand Fiorenzaro, which specializes in electric grinders, the Pietro is a tribue to founder Pietro Fiorenzaro. The Pietro claims to usher in "the vertical revolution", featuring 58mm flat vertical burrs which can take you from espresso all the way through to filter coffee. It's available in a range of gorgeous colors on the company's website. There's U.K. distribution from Sigma Coffee for £360, and U.S. distribution through Seattle Coffee Gear for $475. The xbloom might not be new to you, but it's new to me. Available for U.K. distribution finally through BrewedByHand, this is the first time I've been able to get my hands on this game-changing drip brewer. And why did nobody tell me just how smart this thing is? My first impression was a sip from a fresh-brewed carafe, which was astoundingly good. Juicy, fresh, vibrant. Exactly my kind of drip coffee, and not the sort of thing I'd be able to achieve at home without some serious hands-on adjustments to my setup. The xbloom does this all for you, allowing you to tap an NFC tag agsinst the top of your machine, which will automatically adjust the settings for the perfect result, with zero experimentation needed. Everything has been thought through with the xbloom. It's got a super sensitive in-built scale for more manual brewing, and its attachments allow you to use it as a grinder for espresso or other brewing methods. Even as it brews, its water flows in a circle (like you'd pour it with a gooseneck kettle) and the machine lightly shakes the brewing cup to agitate the grounds, reducing clumping. I'm going to need this in my kitchen ASAP. It's available for U.S. readers for $599 at Confession time: I've never tried the AeroPress. But if I was to try one, I think it'd be the new Go Plus. It's totally portable, pouring coffee directly into a tumbler that also doubles as a storage container when you're done. Plus, it comes in pink. The custom travel tumbler comes with a magnetic leak-resistant lid and a built in filter holder, meaning I could take it on those family trips where you're otherwise stuck drinking instant coffee. As a newly-minted coffee snob, some portable coffee gear is becoming an essential. The Go Plus is $89.95 or £85.99 and comes in three colors. A suspiciously sparse stall caught my eye as I made a final, jittery sweep of the festival. The brand is LinkBar, and it could well be the future of coffee shops. This under-counter coffee and milk dispenser system looks and performs like a high-end faucet, but the milk and coffee it dispensed was far superior to the sort of coffee you'll get in offices and even some mainstream coffee shops. I loved my little latte, and it took less than 15 seconds to pour. The microfoam was fine and full of texture, and the coffee had a dark punchiness that would definitely satisfy the average Starbucks consumer. I suspect my employer is more than a few years away from investing in this kind of coffee tech, but I wouldn't be surprised if we saw LinkBars popping up in major corporate spaces or even coffee shops in the coming years. If this is the future of coffee, I can confirm that it tastes delicious.
The Guardian
19-04-2025
- Entertainment
- The Guardian
Blind date: ‘She called me a dork, which is what every man dreams of'
What were you hoping for? Great food, a fun story and hopefully someone to explore London with. First impressions? Very friendly and warm. He'd also kindly saved the booth seat for me, which I appreciated. What did you talk about? Carbs. Copenhagen v London prices (I'm from Copenhagen). Beach holidays. Films we haven't seen. Our lack of hobbies. And Voldemort. Most awkward moment? Maybe when I started talking about my lactose intolerance after we'd ordered about four different dishes that contained a lot of cheese. Good table manners? No notes. Best thing about Matt? How easy he was to talk to. And that he didn't seem to mind me basically interrogating him (in a nonthreatening way). Would you introduce Matt to your friends? Yeah, they'd get along swimmingly. Blind date is Saturday's dating column: every week, two strangers are paired up for dinner and drinks, and then spill the beans to us, answering a set of questions. This runs, with a photograph we take of each dater before the date, in Saturday magazine (in the UK) and online at every Saturday. It's been running since 2009 – you can read all about how we put it together questions will I be asked?We ask about age, location, occupation, hobbies, interests and the type of person you are looking to meet. If you do not think these questions cover everything you would like to know, tell us what's on your mind. Can I choose who I match with?No, it's a blind date! But we do ask you a bit about your interests, preferences, etc – the more you tell us, the better the match is likely to be. Can I pick the photograph?No, but don't worry: we'll choose the nicest ones. What personal details will appear?Your first name, job and age. How should I answer?Honestly but respectfully. Be mindful of how it will read to your date, and that Blind date reaches a large audience, in print and online. Will I see the other person's answers?No. We may edit yours and theirs for a range of reasons, including length, and we may ask you for more details. Will you find me The One?We'll try! Marriage! Babies! Can I do it in my home town?Only if it's in the UK. Many of our applicants live in London, but we would love to hear from people living elsewhere. How to applyEmail Describe Matt in three words. Kind, cool and witty. What do you think Matt made of you? Probably that I talk too much about pasta. But hopefully he also found me funny. Did you go on somewhere? We went to a pub around the corner for pints and people watching. And … did you kiss? Maaaaaaybe. If you could change one thing about the evening what would it be? I'd invite our fab waiter Pietro along to the pub – what an absolute legend! Marks out of 10? A strong 9. Would you meet again? Yeah, for sure. What were you hoping for? To meet someone fun and have a bit of a different evening out. First impressions? We were a little awkward for about 10 seconds, then clicked pretty quickly. What did you talk about? Worrying about climate change. How a lot of 2000s romcoms are based on Shakespeare. Whether Voldemort should be viewed as an asexual being. Most awkward moment? The waiter thought we were influencers who were going to give them a review. Good table manners? She said I wasn't allowed to write 'impeccable' for this one. We shared bits of everything, which was great. Best thing about Kat? Impeccable table manners. Would you introduce Kat to your friends? Absolutely, she was great fun. Describe Kat in three words. Top-tier vibes. What do you think Kat made of you? She called me a dork, which is what every man dreams of. Did you go on somewhere? To the nearest pub for a couple more drinks. And … did you kiss? What happens on the Piccadilly line stays on the Piccadilly line. If you could change one thing about the evening what would it be? For the waiter to join us for the last glass of wine. Marks out of 10? Nine. It's a 10 really, but I'm English – we're never 100% happy with anything. Would you meet again? I would. And we swapped numbers, so fingers crossed! Kat and Matt ate at Officina 00, London WC2. Fancy a blind date? Email
Forbes
25-03-2025
- Business
- Forbes
How 499-Year-Old Beretta Keeps Reinventing Itself
The October sun is rising over the sprawling, 104-acre grounds of German ammunition producer RWS, on the outskirts of Nuremberg. Far from the 19th-century red brick buildings that house the production facilities, employees outfitted in goggles and earplugs test explosives starting at 7 a.m. After a particularly loud explosion, a worker walks over to pick up a piece of metal that's been twisted into a concave shape by the chemical reaction. 'We call this our ashtray production,' chuckles Stefan Rumpler, a former youth Olympic shooter who now works on air rifle ammunition for RWS, which churns out more than 3 billion components—including bullets, cartridges and primers (which ignite the propellant in a cartridge to push the bullet out of the gun)—a year. One of the leading makers of small caliber ammunition in the world, RWS is now part of Beretta Holding, the company behind the world's oldest gunmaker, Italy-based Beretta. The firm picked up RWS as part of its purchase of Ammotec, Europe's largest maker of ammunition and pyrotechnics, for an undisclosed sum in 2022. 'This is our biggest acquisition yet,' says Beretta Holding CEO Pietro Gussalli Beretta, 63, a 15th-generation descendant of the Beretta founders. Since joining the family business four decades ago and becoming CEO in 1995, Pietro has helped remake the 499-year-old, family-owned company by scooping up firms making everything from rifles to luxury clothing. Levon biss for Forbes The Ammotec deal, for one, added $600 million to Beretta's annual sales, helping it overtake Sig Sauer and Smith & Wesson and added several NATO militaries to its roster of customers. Beretta is now the world's largest firearms company, with $1.7 billion in revenues in 2024. Speaking from the company's Luxembourg headquarters, Pietro outlines how that purchase helped the company—long known for shotguns and handguns, like the storied Beretta 92 pistol wielded by Bruce Willis' John McClane in Die Hard and Mel Gibson's Martin Riggs in Lethal Weapon—move beyond its traditional focus and win over new customers in the defense sector. 'The three legs of our business are hunters, soldiers and policemen. They need guns, clothing and optics,' he says, referring to scopes and red dot sights designed to improve a firearm's aim. 'The last piece we needed was ammunition. With this latest deal, we finally closed the circle.' The Beretta family's wood-paneled private museum in its ancestral home in the town of Gardone Val Trompia in northern Italy houses centuries' worth of historic guns including some dating back to the late 1400s. Before the acquisition, civilian sales accounted for 86% of the company's revenues, making it dependent on the whims of hunters and gun enthusiasts—particularly in the U.S., the world's largest firearms market, which makes up 37% of Beretta's sales. When Covid-19 sent gun sales to American civilians surging, Beretta reaped the rewards, with its North American revenues increasing by 62% from 2019 to 2021. But Pietro knew that would not last forever. Plus he still had to make up ground for a $580 million U.S. Army contract for handguns that it lost to its rival, New Hampshire-based Sig Sauer, in 2017. 'The growth of the civilian market in the U.S. offset the loss of the Army contract, but in the meantime we also built closer ties with other armies and police forces,' he adds. 'We rebalanced.' Now, defense and law enforcement sales account for 34% of Beretta Holding's revenues, up from just 14% four years ago. It's also a smart time to bet on the military: Defense spending by European countries hit a record $350 billion in 2024 as leaders sought to rearm following the Russian invasion of Ukraine. That's set to grow even further, after European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen announced a plan in early March—right after President Trump said the U.S. would pause military aid to Ukraine—to provide EU countries with $160 billion in loans to invest in their armed forces. 'It's not just in Europe. Governments all over the world are now spending more on defense,' says Pietro, pointing to higher sales to Middle Eastern armies. 'Naturally, we've benefited from that.' 'You can sell the firearm and then build brand loyalty and sell ammunition in perpetuity,' says Mark Smith, an analyst at investment bank Lake Street Capital Partners, of the benefits of expanding into ammo. 'If you're getting government contracts on [firearms], it probably opens doors to pick up business on the [ammo] side as well. It certainly helps take away some of the ebbs and flows and cyclicality in the business.' After falling in 2023, Beretta Holding's EBITDA (earnings before interest, taxes, debt and amortization) rebounded 2% to $245 million in 2024—more than triple that of its publicly-traded rivals Sturm, Ruger & Co. and Smith & Wesson. Forbes estimates Beretta Holding, which is 100% owned by Pietro, his 87-year-old father Ugo and his brother Franco, 61, is now worth $2.2 billion. Add in the family's prized vineyards, homes and investments and the trio share an estimated $2.7 billion fortune. Villa Beretta, the family's mansion in the Alpine foothills built out of local stone in 1925, is adjacent to the factory where workers make shotguns, pistols and rifles. While no one lives there any more, it gets frequent visitors. It has definitely not been a get rich quick scenario. Beretta traces its history to 1526, when Bartolomeo Beretta (d. 1565), a rifle barrel maker in the small northern Italian town of Gardone, sold 185 arquebus barrels—a handheld long gun and a forerunner to the modern rifle—to the Republic of Venice. Generations of Bartolomeo's heirs have continued the family tradition, still living in Gardone and still making guns. The family-owned business has supplied firearms, including eventually the world's first semi-automatic pistols and one of the first machine guns, for every European war since 1650. Under Ugo's leadership, the firm moved into the U.S. in 1978 and by 1985 had won a coveted contract to provide handguns to the U.S. Army. That's when Pietro joined the firm, helping his father buy out Beretta's then minority shareholder, French firearms firm FN Herstal (now based in Belgium). 'We had funds to spare and we decided that if we wanted to make more acquisitions, we had to become more organized,' he recalls. The family established Beretta Holding in Luxembourg in 1995, simplifying the firm's complicated structure, built over centuries, and consolidating ownership under one holding company. That's around when expansion began in earnest. Beretta picked up Finnish rifle maker SAKO in 2000, its first move outside of shotguns and pistols, and added optics firms Burris and Steiner in 2002 and 2008, respectively, which make scopes, red dots and binoculars. After buying British luxury clothing and handmade gun maker Holland & Holland in 2021 and Ammotec a year later, Beretta Holding now owns 19 brands operating in 23 countries on five continents. Thanks to that push, none of Beretta's subsidiaries account for more than 25% of the group's revenues. 'You'll continue to see more consolidation in the space as people coalesce around known entities,' says Lake Street's Smith, pointing to the loyalty commanded by Beretta and its subsidiaries among their longtime customers, even after the firms are acquired. 'You know what you're getting with Beretta.' At Beretta subsidiary Steiner's headquarters in Bayreuth, Germany, a small team of highly-trained designers meticulously handcraft rifle scopes, binoculars and red dot sights, smoothing and polishing the lenses with diamond dust to ensure higher-definition light transmission. Some of Beretta's competitors are trying to catch up. While Glock, Smith & Wesson and Sturm, Ruger & Co. still don't make their own ammo, Prague-based Colt CZ, which bought the American company behind Colt guns in 2021, purchased ammo maker Sellier & Bellot last May for $700 million. For Pietro, the family's control and deep involvement—his father, who stepped down from executive positions in 2015, sits on the board, while his brother Franco runs Fabbrica d'Armi Pietro Beretta, the original family company and now a Beretta subsidiary where Franco's son Carlo also works—is what sets Beretta apart from its competition. 'We have something that others don't, and that they'll never have: a single family owner,' he says, noting how other storied firearms families sold out or took their firms public. 'When we need to deal with foreign governments, it's me or my brother meeting the president. That's not the case with other businesses. We have a long-term vision that isn't speculative.' To keep ahead of its rivals, the Berettas are also reinvesting dividends and setting aside a portion of revenues to develop new products and produce guns and ammo more efficiently. Nowhere is that more evident than at the 240,000-square-foot factory in central Italy of Benelli Armi, a Beretta subsidiary that makes semiautomatic shotguns. Thanks to investments first made in 2019, autonomous vehicles deliver components to workers on the assembly lines, while screens overhead track their minute-by-minute progress—updated in real-time. Robotic arms test each component for quality control, using machine learning to improve their performance by detecting any defects early in production. The same drive for efficiency exists at RWS, which spends 8% of its revenue annually on upgrading machinery to scale up ammo production. 'The Berettas aren't interested in opportunistic approaches. They have a perspective of 25 to 50 years,' explains Matthias Vogel, a vice president at RWS. As Beretta looks toward its 500th anniversary in 2026, Pietro is pragmatic. Asked about his hopes for Beretta's next half-millennium, he scoffs. 'How am I supposed to know how the next 500 years are going to go? I won't be around, so I don't really care,' he says. 'The next generations will do what is best. I prefer to think about the next five years.'
