It Happens Here: Golden Cannoli May Be Chelsea's Best Kept Secret
CHELSEA (CBS) – Quick. Name the largest cannoli shell manufacturer in the country.
You might not have known the answer resides in Chelsea – Golden Cannoli.
"We are the nation's largest manufacturer, and we do the best," says co-owner Valerie Bono.
"And we are the best," her cousin and co-owner Eric Bresciani chimes in with a laugh.
Golden Cannoli, you'll quickly learn if you visit, is a family affair. It was started in 1970 by two brothers originally from Italy, and is now run by their children, four cousins, out of a large complex in Chelsea.
"This is where our comfort is. This is what we love and we know," Valerie told WBZ-TV.
That know-how has made them a giant success – and maybe Chelsea's best-kept secret. If you walk into a grocery store or bakery anywhere in the country and buy a cannoli, there's a good chance that, at a minimum, the shell is from Golden Cannoli.
"We're sort of the magic behind the scenes," Valerie says. And they're proud of that.
But perhaps the real magic act has been keeping this business alive through a pandemic, inflation and supply chain issues. Palm oil, which Golden uses as shortening in its cannolis, is up 89 percent alone.
"The hard part is the uncertainty, because you don't know where is it going to stop, how long is it going to last, how much more is it going to go up?" says Eric.
But they've managed to keep their nearly 100 employees on the payroll. "We consider our employees family, and you want to keep everybody employed," he says.
And the work here is difficult. They hand-roll and hand-filled the cannolis. They operate six days a week and can make up to 200,000 cannoli shells per day in their busiest seasons.
Valerie and Eric says it's all worth it to get more of America on the cannoli bandwagon.
"Life can be serious sometimes, so cannoli makes people happy," Valerie says.
You can try them for yourselves at shop.goldencannoli.com.
