A wooden board of soft golden polenta with a pool of melted butter, beside a small heap of coarse yellow cornmeal and a wooden spoon on a dark table

Moretti: A Century of Bramata from the Bergamo Plain

September 29, 2026

In 1922 Aristide Moretti and his wife Carolina took over a corn mill in Campagnola, a quarter of Bergamo in Lombardy. The meal they made there, bramata, is still at the front of the range a hundred years later. The company is now Gruppo Moretti and is run by the fourth generation. In 2022 its brand was entered on Italy's special register of historic brands of national interest. The polenta in the shop is theirs: the 500 g bag of bramata.

The place

Bergamo sits where the Alpine valleys open onto the Lombard plain, and coarse polenta belongs to its kitchen tradition. Moretti's own product page calls bramata a coarse-grained corn meal "typical of the Bergamo tradition," with a full, intense flavor. Manicaretti, the company's US importer, says the Moretti family has been growing corn and making polenta on the Bergamo plains for over 100 years.

The wider range follows the local map. Moretti's taragna, a mix of whole corn and buckwheat meals, is credited to the Bergamo valleys and the Valtellina. Its white bramata is milled from a naturally white corn that the company calls typical of the Veneto.

How it started

The company's history page opens in 1922, when "the founder Aristide Moretti takes over a corn mill in Bergamo, in the Campagnola quarter." BergamoNews, the city's online paper, covered the centenary in 2022. It reported that Aristide and Carolina made flours from the start, and that the family came to specialize in bramata for polenta, "whose recipe is still renowned around the world." The brand's own history credits Aristide with finding that recipe through careful selection of corn varieties.

The second generation made the mark. According to the brand history, Aristide's son Franco Moretti designed the logo for the company's core product and chose the image of a king. The brand history says vacuum packing, introduced in 1989, kept the meal's qualities for longer, and the group's own timeline ties it to the export trade.

The century, in dates

From the company's own dated history:

Year	What happened
1922	Aristide Moretti, with his wife Carolina, takes over a corn mill in Campagnola, Bergamo
1939	A second mill, for soft wheat, is bought in Colognola, another Bergamo quarter
1956	The Campagnola mill is upgraded for corn and animal feed
1968	Moretti SpA is formed and the mill goes industrial, rated at 150 tonnes a day
1989	Vacuum packing for corn meal arrives, and with it the export trade
1993	Third-generation family members found Cascina Italia, an egg business, in Spirano
2018	A new Moretti flour plant is built
2021	The fourth generation takes charge
2022	The centenary, and entry on Italy's register of historic brands

By the time of the centenary, the corn mill had become a group. BergamoNews reported about 100 employees from 21 countries, 85 million euros in aggregate revenue, and a yearly volume of 600 million eggs and 30,000 tonnes of corn. Spread across a calendar year, 30,000 tonnes averages about 82 tonnes of corn a day. That is a little over half the 150 tonnes a day the 1968 mill was rated for. It is an average, not a throughput. The report does not say how many days the mills run or how much of the corn becomes polenta rather than feed.

What each source says about the corn

Topic	Gruppo Moretti and Farine Moretti, the producer	Manicaretti, US importer	BergamoNews, 2022
Founding	1922, Aristide Moretti, a corn mill in Campagnola	1922, Aristide and Carolina take over an ancient corn mill in Campagnola	1922, a mill acquired in Campagnola, Bergamo
Corn	Bramata: coarse corn meal of the Bergamo tradition; no variety named	Otto file, an heirloom corn from the Po valley	30,000 tonnes of corn a year across the group
Milling	Vacuum packed since 1989	Husked, dried in temperature-controlled ovens, stone ground with the hull and germ	No milling detail
Recognition	Register of historic brands of national interest, 2022	Same, 2022	Same, 2022

The founding story and the register agree across all three. The corn variety and the stone grinding come only from the importer. Moretti's Italian product page describes bramata by its grain and its flavor and does not name a variety or a milling method.

The range

Meal	What it is	What the producer pairs it with
Bramata	Coarse yellow corn meal; 500 g and 1 kg vacuum bags	Meat, cheese, mushrooms, eggs, truffles
Bramata Lampo	The coarse meal in a quick version, cooked in a few minutes	No separate pairing given
Bramata Bianca	Coarse meal from a naturally white corn typical of the Veneto	Fish sauces and condiments
Fioretto	Fine yellow corn meal, delicate, for soft polenta	Vegetables, white sauces
Taragna	Whole corn and buckwheat meals, from the Bergamo valleys and the Valtellina	No separate pairing given
Taragna Lampo	The quick taragna	Polenta concia, with cheese and butter

The bramata in the shop

The Moretti bramata polenta (shop Moretti bramata polenta) is the 500 g bag, and the importer lists its ingredients as corn meal. Manicaretti calls it rustic, coarse, hearty and golden yellow, "the oracle of all Italian polenta." It is the long-cooking kind, not the Lampo.

The directions on the importer's page are short. Bring 2 liters of water to a boil, preferably in a copper pot, and add a tablespoon of salt. Pour in the whole bag slowly, whisking hard so it does not lump. When it bubbles, lower the heat and keep stirring with a wooden spoon for 30 to 45 minutes. That is four parts water to one part meal by weight. The Polenta: The Recipe to Learn First guide halves it to 250 g for four, so the full bag feeds eight.

In Denver, plan on the long end of that window. Colorado State University Extension puts the boiling point of water at 203°F at 5,000 feet, against 212°F at sea level, and notes that simmered foods cook at a lower temperature at elevation and need longer. It also notes that dry air speeds evaporation, so keep a kettle of hot water nearby to loosen the pot. The altitude guide covers the rest of the kitchen.

What goes on it

Moretti's own pairing list for bramata reads like a Lombard autumn: meat, cheese, mushrooms, eggs and truffles. For mushrooms, a handful of Wine Forest dried chanterelles (shop Wine Forest dried chanterelles) soaked and sautéed in butter, or a jar of Casina Rossa sugo al porcini (shop Casina Rossa sugo al porcini) warmed through, goes over soft polenta. Dried Mushrooms: The Complete Guide covers soaking and the liquid, and the upcoming polenta with mushrooms recipe builds the whole plate. For truffles, Piedmont in Autumn covers the season next door. Leftover polenta sets firm overnight, and the slices fry or grill the next day.

Keeping it

The Whole Grains Council gives whole grain flours and meals 1 to 3 months on a cool, dry shelf in an airtight container, or 2 to 6 months in the freezer. Meals keep less well than intact grains because grinding breaks up the protective bran and lets oxygen reach all parts of the grain, and the oils in the germ are sensitive to heat, light and moisture. The importer says Moretti grinds with the hull and germ, so that shorter window applies once the vacuum seal is cut. Unopened, the vacuum bag keeps the meal from air. The company says vacuum packing, adopted in 1989, preserves the meal's qualities and gives it a longer life. Once the bag is open, fold it down tight or move the meal to a jar, and keep it away from the stove.

The Moretti bramata is at 263 Josephine Street in Cherry Creek, Denver, and ships nationwide from theambrosianpantry.com. Visitors can ask staff questions in the shop.