The flower passion of the Mansuino Family began more than one century ago, when Domenico Mansuino, a young man from the south of Piemonte, after emigrating first to the south of France, for a short period, decided to move to Sanremo in the Italian Riviera.
At the beginning of the 20th Century, Sanremo was a small nice town on the Mediterranean coast, blessed by a very mild climate and by a quiet life based on some tourism and agriculture.
Due to the climate, many small farmers on the sunny hills of Sanremo decided to start growing flowers, not only for the local market but especially for exports to the north of Europe and to the far Russia, thanks to excellent train connections from a local station that was inaugurated in 1872.
Therefore, Domenico Mansuino, who as main business established a pioneering photo studio, decided to buy a property on Poggio di Sanremo (which later became a famous hill because it is the last hard effort for the cyclists running the Milano – Sanremo) and around 1920 started growing roses for cut flower.
One of his sons, Quinto Mansuino, was bored of staying all day in the darkness of a photo lab, and decided to take over the growing, and, also inspired by his friend Domenico Aicardi, started his first breeding efforts on carnations and some other crops.
During the 2nd World War the photo lab, in the center of Sanremo, was destroyed by a bombing, and the whole Mansuino family was left without the main business. Therefore, Quinto, who in the meantime made the growing and breeding more developed and profitable, invited two of his nephews to work with him in the flower farm.
They both learned very well the profession of growing and breeding.
One of the nephews was Giacomo Nobbio, who soon decided to start his own business and became one of the most prominent carnation breeders in the history of this crop.
The other nephew was Domenico Mansuino jr., who in the fifties graduated from University as a pharmaceutical chemist, but then acted as director of the Manuino breeding business of his uncle, which he inherited, and who especially revitalized the rose breeding lines of small cut roses that are internationally known as “rose mansuiniane”.
One son of Domenico jr., Andrea, after graduating in biology and genetics, decided to continue the breeding passion of the family.
However, in those years (the eighties), the flower industry had heavily changed, and the globalization of the markets moved the main areas of cut flower production from Europe (and USA) to more remote countries, initially Colombia and from the mid-nineties also Kenya and Ecuador among others.
Therefore Andrea Mansuino decided to broaden his horizons and developed a more international approach of his job, both as grower and breeder in his properties in Sanremo, and as partner in other ventures which took him to accept responsibilities in breeding, licensing, advising at other businesses and to develop networks and know how through other commitments, such as e.g. the presidency of CIOPORA (international association of breeders).
Nowadays Andrea, forth generation grower and breeder in the Mansuino Family, is active in breeding ornamental crops and in representing and advising other colleagues, with unchanged passion.
Andrea always says “I am lucky, I never worked all my life, I just did what I loved”.
