Piedmont Valley Truffles was officially formed in 2002, but the idea & passion truly began several years before then...

In the early 1990's, Jack Ponticelli was striving to build his hot-air balloon ride / advertising business in rural northwestern New Jersey. During this time, he found that some of his pilots would land on farmer's fields - often causing resentment or misunderstanding between both balloonists and farmers. Not easily subdued with a bottle of mid-priced champagne, as traditional beckons, the farmers would regularly force the balloonists to continue flying off of their property and into potentially unsafe areas.

Having a background in farming, Jack searched for a way to bridge the gap between farmers & balloonists and establish a lasting relationship between him & the landowners. Already active in the town government, he joined a committee that was comprised of mostly farmers and a few knowledgeable volunteers. The committee's charter was to identify alternate crops that would help local farmers earn more income from their existing land and stave off the rapidly encroaching housing developers.

It was the early days of the internet, and Jack used this new tool to help him search for viable crops that would flourish in the region. He stumbled upon a website for a Truffle Institute in Northern Italy. Having heard scant stories of truffles, and their high value, the website seemed intriguing but was in Italian so proved a challenge. Jack printed out the pages and brought them to a friend who translated into English.

Jack learned that the Italian government had recently assisted local landowners in the Piedmont and Tuscany regions with the planting of inoculated truffle seedlings. There was still much speculation on the viability of commercially harvesting truffles, but the research appeared promising with rumors of some who have already successfully harvested truffles. Upon further analyses, Jack surmised that the Black Truffle (Tuber melanosporum) would most likely grow in the northern region of the United States, but would be impossible to harvest given the harsh winters and frozen ground. He did realize that the Summer Truffle (Tuber aestivum) would be ideal for northwestern New Jersey, and passed this information along to the Farmers Board, who skeptically dismissed this unproven and non-traditional crop.

Over the coming years, intrigued with the idea of truffle production and having an affinity for the South, Jack researched the mid-Atlantic region and came across Franklin Garland in Hillsborough North Carolina. In 1992, Franklin had successfully cultivated a Black Truffle on his small one half acre (300 tree) farm.

Jack decided to take a ride down to Hillsborough, with his wife Debbie, and meet Franklin. Pulling into his long hidden driveway, he was surprised to see Franklin at the mailbox - Franklin was equally surprised to have an unannounced visitor to his house. After the initial awkwardness, the two talked for hours and became fast friends with regular correspondence and a sharing of ideas.

Shortly thereafter, just before the new millennium, Jack had made a commitment to move to the rolling hills of North Carolina's Piedmont region and cultivate a few acres of truffles on his newly acquired 37 acre farm.

Concurrently, Aron J Ponticelli began to listen more intently to his father's incessant discussions on truffles. Once Aron put some of the numbers together on production, price, yield, profit margins, etc. he realized that this could be made into a much larger business than just a few acres on a personal farm. He appreciated the fact that this was an ideal business in a nascent industry, with little to no competition, and that the first-mover could one day dominate the industry. The idea was to not only grow the truffles, but increase profits further by eliminating the middleman and distributing directly to consumers, chefs and manufacturers.

Aron fully immersed himself into the alluring world of truffles and quickly became an expert, along with Jack, on the industry. Aron worked on a Business Plan for their new venture and began to network with bankers, angel investors, entrepreneurs, chefs and others in his hometown of New York City. Over the course of two years Jack and Aron completed the Plan, along with several revisions to the size and strategy of the business, and successfully raised the initial equity capital to fund operations on 30 acres and until the company was profitable.

Shortly after raising the capital, Jack and Aron J Ponticelli formed Piedmont Valley Truffles and have continued to lead and grow the business to this day.