Daniel Bartalotta is living the sweet life – and he owes it all to long hours, hard work and Nutella donuts.
Mr Bartalotta’s business, Daniel’s Bakery in Hoppers Crossing, has gained cult status for its Nutella donuts, with more than 16,000 likes on the bakery Facebook page and customers coming from all over Melbourne.
Mr Bartalotta, 23, offers two kinds, a regular and a larger one with twice as much Nutella.
He also offers about 20 other fillings, including salted caramel, cherry ripe, tiramisu, lemon meringue and peanut butter.
The bakery makes between 3000 and 10,000 donuts a day, depending on orders. At the peak of the Nutella donut craze earlier this year, Mr Bartalotta said people would line up for 45 minutes to buy them. He said one man drove down from Sydney every week to pick up 500 boxes for festivals and other events.
“Some people have eaten so much Nutella, they’re sick of the donuts now and are trying other flavours,” he said.
Despite his youth, Mr Bartalotta is not new to baking. His dad ran a Brumby’s bakery at the same site, where Mr Bartalotta learned the trade after school and at weekends.
He took over the business in September last year and has boosted his workforce from eight to 50 to cope with demand.
