Some of the best things in a corporate gift box are the ones people do not expect. Chocolate and wine are easy to guess. Nougat is the piece that makes someone stop and read the label, and in Western Australia that label very often says Mondo. Mondo Nougat sits on Great Northern Highway in Herne Hill, in the middle of the Swan Valley, and it is one of the makers we come back to again and again when we are building corporate gift boxes for Perth businesses.
The short version: Mondo Nougat is a family business making traditional Italian nougat in the Swan Valley since 1990, using Australian honey, almonds, macadamias and pistachios across more than twenty varieties. It suits corporate gifting because it travels without refrigeration, it gets shared around an office, and it carries a story worth telling.
A Swan Valley nougat story that started in Calabria
Mondo did not begin as a nougat company. It began as a patisserie, and the recipe arrived long before the business did.
Alfonso Romeo learned pastry in Calabria, in the south of Italy, first working at his uncle's patisserie as a boy and later learning from an older brother. Four of the six Romeo brothers ended up at Bar Romeo Pasticceria, where they hand wrapped nougat every year from September until just after Christmas. Mondo traces the recipe back to the family's home town of Taurianova, where, in their words, "the Romeo family still produces nougat to this day".
Alfonso met Antonietta Garreffa, known as Toni, in 1978. She had been born in Perth and had come to Italy for a five week holiday. Five weeks became five months, and they married in 1979. Their sons Andrea, Simone and Marco arrived through the 1980s.
The family tell the next part plainly on their own website, so we will too. In 1989, on the eve of opening his own patisserie in a town seven kilometres from home, Alfonso's shop was firebombed. The family had not yet moved into the flat above it. They decided instead to make a new life in Perth. A mixer salvaged from that fire is still in use at the Swan Valley factory today.
A mixer salvaged from that fire is still in use at the Swan Valley factory today.
In 1990 Alfonso and Toni opened Mondo Patisserie in Midland. The nougat came later, and it came from customers. There was no Christmas nougat in Perth at the time, so Alfonso handmade and wrapped 20 kilograms of it. People kept coming back, so he made a little more, and a little more. Mondo now makes five or six batches a day, or 300 to 400 kilograms.
Nougat went into year round production in 1997. In 2000 the business moved to Morley and became Mondo Nougat, taking on the motto it still carries: Tradition, Innovation, Excellence. In 2005 it moved again, to the Swan Valley site it occupies now, combining a factory with a viewing window, a retail shop and a cafe.
Alfonso passed away in 2022. Mondo remains a family business, run by Toni with Andrea, Simone and Marco, and director Edoardo Lissoni.
Why nougat works so well in a corporate gift box
We do not choose inclusions because they photograph well. We choose them because they survive the journey, they suit the moment they arrive in, and they say something about the business sending them. Nougat does all three.
It travels
This matters more than people expect. A corporate gift box might sit in a reception area for half a day before anyone opens it, and in a Perth summer that rules out a lot of otherwise lovely things. Nougat is stable, it holds its shape, and it does not need refrigeration or careful handling to arrive in the condition it left in.
It is made here, properly
Mondo makes its nougat using Australian honey, almonds, macadamia and pistachio nuts, and delivers more than twenty different varieties. When the family arrived from Italy they found the local palate differed from the continental one and modified the recipe to suit it, which is where the Macadamia Soft Nougat came from.
When a client asks us what is local about a box, this is the kind of answer we want to be able to give. Not "sourced in Australia" in the vague sense, but a named family in a named suburb who have been making it here since 1990.
It is meant to be shared
Nougat breaks up and gets passed around. If you are sending a gift box to an office rather than an individual, that is a genuine advantage. One person opens it, and eight people end up associating your business with something good. A single serve item cannot do that.
What it says about the business sending it
There is a version of corporate gifting where the gift is obviously a line item. Everyone involved knows it, including the person receiving it.
Choosing a maker like Mondo works against that, because the story is short enough to tell and specific enough to be interesting. A family arrived from Calabria, opened a patisserie in Midland, and ended up making some of the best nougat in the country because their customers would not stop asking. That is a better thirty seconds of conversation than a branded pen will ever generate.
It also signals something about how the sender makes decisions. Businesses that choose carefully on the small things are usually assumed to choose carefully on the large ones.
Common questions
Where is Mondo Nougat made?
At Mondo's own factory on Great Northern Highway in Herne Hill, in the Swan Valley. The site combines the factory, which has a public viewing window, with a retail shop and a cafe.
What is Mondo nougat made from?
Australian honey, almonds, macadamia and pistachio nuts, and eggs, following the family's traditional recipe.
How many varieties are there?
More than twenty. That range is useful in gifting, because the nougat can be matched to whatever else is going in the box.
Does nougat suit corporate gifting?
It does. It is shelf stable, it does not need refrigeration, it survives a courier and a warm reception desk, and it is easy to share around an office.
Can Mondo nougat go into a branded corporate gift box?
Yes. We build boxes around Western Australian makers and can add branded message cards, logo stickers or other branded touches. A minimum order of 5 applies for corporate gift box orders.
Local sourcing is a choice, not a claim
We build a lot of our corporate gift boxes around Western Australian makers, and Mondo is one of the reasons that approach holds up. Buying from a Swan Valley producer keeps the money in the state, shortens the distance the product travels, and gives the box a genuine sense of place.
If you want to see how this translates into gift boxes built for Perth businesses, Corporate Gift Boxes Perth is a good place to start. Sustainable Corporate Gifts covers how we approach conscious gifting more broadly, and you can request a corporate gifting quote whenever you are ready. A minimum order of 5 applies for corporate gift box orders.
Mondo nougat sits well alongside chocolate, nuts, coffee and a bottle of something, and it works across most of the occasions our clients gift for, from client thank-yous and settlement gifts through to end of year boxes for staff. It is the kind of inclusion that makes a gift box feel like someone chose it, which is exactly what we are trying to do with every order.