01
Heritage
Founded in Catania in 1940 by a master pastry chef, and still run by the same family: Vincenzo Lo Castro with his children Vito, Silvia and Sergio.
Salemi, Trapani · Sicily
Ingredients for Sicily's pastry chefs since 1940. Thirteen jars in which the house finally speaks for itself.
- House
- BonCrem, a Stramondo brand
- Since
- 1940
- Territory
- Salemi, Trapani
- Craft
- Spreadable nut creams
A house that professionals buy from.
Most spreads begin as a brand. BonCrem began as a supplier.
For more than eighty years the Stramondo house has made ingredients for the people who make dessert for a living: the pastes, the concentrates and the nut creams behind the gelato in a Sicilian gelateria and the filling in a Sicilian pasticceria.
BonCrem is what happened when that house decided to put its own work in a jar and sell it under its own name. The recipes come from the professional side and they show it: a pistachio cream that is 22 per cent pistachio and nothing else added for flavour; a peanut butter seasoned with sea salt from Trapani, twenty minutes down the road; a hazelnut cream built on organic Piedmont PGI Tonda Gentile rather than on sugar.
The Stramondo workshop, in an archive photograph.
It is not a consumer business and it never had to be charming. It had to be consistent, batch after batch, for customers who would notice immediately if it was not.
The house
1940
Pasquale Stramondo, a Sicilian master pastry chef, founds the house in Catania.
1976
Vincenzo Lo Castro joins the company.
1986
The company is acquired and moved to Salemi, in the province of Trapani: in the house's own words, the heart of agricultural raw material production.
2010
A new production and administrative headquarters opens on a twelve-thousand-square-metre site.
2023
The plant completes a full green conversion and now runs entirely on self-produced renewable energy.
Today
Three generations in, the house exports to more than fifty countries and supplies professional gelato and pastry kitchens across Sicily and beyond.
Born in Catania. Made in Salemi.
100%100 per cent pistachio
Five of the thirteen jars are pistachio. Not variations on a theme: five answers to the same nut.
Pistachios, peeled, roasted, ground. Nothing else.
The percentage is on the front of the jar because the percentage is the recipe.
Why we selected BonCrem
02
Origin
The house sits at Salemi, in the west of the island, because that is where the raw material is. Sicilian lemon, cold-pressed for its essential oil. Sea salt from Trapani. Pistachio and almond from the west of Sicily. Modica PGI chocolate in the gianduja.
03
Craft
These are professional recipes, and they are written as percentages rather than adjectives: 22, 25, 26 or 100 per cent nut, declared on the front of the jar. No flavourings added to the pistachio. No added sugar in the Protein+ and Veg lines.
04
Integrity
IFS Food and BRCGS Food Safety, the two audits that professional buyers actually run, plus organic certification through CCPB, and Kosher and Halal certification. A supplier's paperwork, on a consumer's shelf.
Guarantee of origin
Certified for the people who audit.
A jar on a shelf can say almost anything. A supplier that sells to pastry kitchens and exports to fifty countries cannot: it gets audited, and the audit is the guarantee. BonCrem carries the certifications its professional customers require, IFS Food and BRCGS Food Safety, alongside organic certification through CCPB, and Kosher and Halal certification. The plant it all comes out of has run on self-produced renewable energy since 2023.
50 countries
The house exports to more than fifty countries.
12,000 m²
The Salemi plant, running since 2023 on the energy it generates itself.
- Sicilian house since 1940, three generations
- IFS Food
- BRCGS Food Safety
- Organic certified, CCPB
- Kosher
- Halal
- 12,000 m² plant, 100% self-produced renewable energy
- Exported to 50+ countries
- No palm oil, on the label
Through ZAGARA Selection
Sicilian spreadable creams from Salemi, in four lines — Bio, Classic, Protein+ and Veg — chosen so that the shelf works for a household where not everyone eats the same way. Thirteen jars, from a 22 per cent pistachio to a gianduja made with Modica PGI chocolate, imported directly and delivered across Australia.
Shop BonCrem
Thirteen jars in four lines: Bio, Classic, Protein+ and Veg.
Every BonCrem jar is between consignments from Salemi right now. Leave your email on the one you want and we will write to you the day it lands in Australia.
$63.90Avísame
$30.90Avísame
$49.90Avísame
$33.90Avísame
Gianduja al Cioccolato di Modica
Crema gianduja BonCrem
$26.90Avísame
Browse the whole selection
© BonCrem — photographs courtesy of the house