The history of SCP Global Import is that of an Italian family that has crossed crises, migrations and reparations without ever losing its identity. In this interview, Peter traces the transfer to the United States wanted by his father Nicola Pirraglia, the opening of family coffee, his disappearance in 2023 and the birth of SCP Global Import, now active in the importation and distribution of Made in Italy products between Connecticut, Rhode Island, New York and New Jersey. At the heart of the story there are the value of the family, the courage to start over and the will to honor, every day, the inheritance left by the father.
When is your company born and where does this family tradition start, which today carries on with your brother and sister as representatives of the last generation?
Let’s just say this company was born. First we opened a bar, an Italian coffee in Connecticut, and then we jumped into the import, because yes, in New York the Italian products are found, but they are always the usual products, those you can find anywhere. There are not always products of a certain level, those you really want to have at home at a normal price. It is often too expensive. Then we launched into this import and started. Import activity has existed for two years.
Before importation, then, your American dream was another. How did everything start?
Yes, absolutely. We didn’t start doing this. We went to America and opened a coffee, an Italian bar, with my father. He was the promoter of everything, because we lived in Italy until 2014. Then, with the crisis, my father decided to go to America. I followed him: we left him and I first, while my sister, my mother and my brother remained in Italy. We arrived in February, we took home, began to work; they then arrived in August. We were all together in a small apartment for a couple of years. After four years, we bought a house in Connecticut. Then my brother-in-law, my sister’s current husband, went into the family, and then my father said, “But why do we have to work on his own, for different people? Why don’t we all work together? ”. So we joined and opened the coffee.
In the middle of this story there is clearly the figure of his father, Nicola Pirraglia. How important was that?
My dad started it. Unfortunately, a year after the opening of coffee, it failed. So yes, he started it all, and then he couldn’t see everything that’s happening now. But all we do is for him. When he left Italy he was 57 years old: he was already a great person, with three children. My twin brother and I were 16, my sister 17. And he took the suitcases and said it was enough, we go the other side of the world. We didn’t know the language, we knew nothing. I didn’t even know how to say hello in English. I started working by telling the employer I spoke English, but it wasn’t true. I was a photographer at weddings, and I still do it on weekends. They asked me: “Can you take pictures?” I said yes, “Give me the car.” Then over time they realized it was just to start working, because I needed to work. It was there that I learned the American business, the way to live in America, what you have to do and what you don’t have to do, how to respect people. It is very different from Italy. In Italy you know everyone, in America you really have to be worth it for what you are, otherwise they pass over.
What man was his father?
For the whole family, whenever that moment came when one said “Vabbè, it’s not working, it’s enough”, he was ready to say the opposite: don’t stop, throw up to the last fur you can take, always throw. My father has done so many times in his life: he went to Argentina, from Argentina went to New York, from New York he returned to Italy, from Italy he returned to America, then he returned to Italy, then again in America with us. The courage he had was incredible. He has reconstructed his life many times, he has climbed, he has descended, he has gone up, he has gone down again. And he handed down this will to his children to always fight.
In addition to courage, what left you inside, as a family?
For us he was the family column. If I was arguing with my brother, he was in the middle and said, “That is your brother.” The family was the most important thing, the only thing you really have. Even today we eat all nights together, we go on holiday together, my mother is once at my house, once at my brother’s house and another from my sister. We’re a very united family. For many this union may seem almost morbid. But no, that’s what my father wanted. He did not accept for any reason that one said: “Stasera I’m not coming.” If you’re alone, stay with us. We all ate every night together. He wanted to see everyone together, always. He didn’t want fights or divisions.
Do you remember what the success of coffee was for him?
When we opened the coffee there was an exaggerated boom, because in Connecticut Italian places so there were no. I have pictures of my father in the last beautiful times, when the place went strong, and in his eyes he saw happiness. It was like he said: “Look, after four years in America, starting from scratch, what we have built.” We bought a house with the pool, we opened a coffee. And opening a business in America is not easy, it takes so long. But we succeeded in what we had, which was very little. We really did. Now for four years business exists, and every year it continues to grow.
How much does it matter today to tell a familiar story like yours?
It matters a lot to us, because it’s a family story. In 2026, in my opinion, few can really understand what the family is. Everyone has it, but they don’t always live it like once. This is why it is nice to tell how an Italian family can still be united as in the 1960s. Because we’re like this. We always say that: our family had to be born fifty years ago, as we are. That’s why I think it’s a good story to tell.
Has being twin engraved on your way of living the family?
Absolutely. I always say: having a twin means having a better friend forever. You are never afraid that you say “If I fight with my brother, then he won’t talk to me anymore”. That thing doesn’t fit your head. You can do anything, but after five minutes everything is the same. It’s something you can’t explain. The way you feel about your twin, or your twin, is something you can’t tell at the bottom. Sometimes you feel worried, and after five minutes the call arrives and find out something really happened. There is an incredible connection. Then there is also the comic side: my father often did not know who, so if one did something, the reproach if they took both. And if we said, “Dad, but I didn’t,” he said, “Yes, but were you with him? Then you had to tell him not to. So we used to get both of us.
Let’s go back to work: coffee remains open and continues to grow. How does the passage to import start?
Coffee’s left, sure. And already before we imported Italian products, but we did it through another company: we bought from them and then sold. When my father failed, the family had to sit and arrange. When you lose a column like this, it’s normal to stop and say: well, instead of going out all our way, let’s see what we can do. At that time this Italian company made us a proposal: to open our line, our company. We started slowly, and that was exactly what my father always said: “That’s where we have to get there, we have to do this.” We jumped, even though none of us knew until the end of the import. But these guys helped us a lot, they gave us some customers they had, and so we bought a truck, we started with small customers, one step at a time. Today we’ve got about 30 in a year.
The impressive thing is that his father had already guessed this way before the proposal came..
Yes, and that’s something I keep hearing very loud. The other night I was in Italy, because my girlfriend is Italian and so we go back and forth, and we went to eat outside. I met an old cousin of my father, who asked me what I did in America. I told him I’m importing. And he answered me: “I remember your father once came to Italy to look for some companies.” I didn’t know that. I pretended I knew, but I didn’t know. Then I rebuilt everything: my father, in November before he died — he died in May of 2023 — had descended to Italy and already was looking at this possibility. That cousin told me: “But is that the same thing your father told me when he came?” And there I realized that yes, in 2023 he had already come with that idea in the head. Just that my dad was a guy who didn’t say anything to anyone until he was already inside things. He did “casino”, he did good things, but he always said it later. And this is incredible for me.
Do you then live that proposal as a sign?
Yes, I honestly say that. I believe in God, I believe in the afterlife, I believe that certain things just happen. Because a company that tells you: “I give you all my clients, you stay in America and do all of you, we are in Italy and we take care of something else,” it is something that does not exist. It means that they give up part of the profit, because clearly to me they cannot sell at the same price they sold to the final customer. So the idea of saying “This is losing a part, yet it is giving me the same” is incredible. Nobody can explain it, neither can we. Then with them we became friends in an incredible way. But the fact that that proposal came to us at that moment, and that it was exactly my father’s dream… for me it’s something you can’t explain only with logic..
What are your activities called today?
The bar is called Coffee Break. Import business is called SCP Global Import.
What do you import from Italy?
The most important product is Battipaglia’s bell mozzarella, especially for restaurants and markets. Then we also import many other retail products that are sold in stores. Actually, we bring a little bit of everything, I have to tell the truth. Everything is Made in Italy, everything comes from Italy. Our main target is restaurants, because that’s where the Italian product is 100 percent. But we also work with markets, with Italian supermarkets, with everything that is sold in that sector. We have a catalog of 180 pages, so we really treat everything.
Where do you have your operational base and where do you work?
We have a warehouse, a plant in Connecticut, Norwalk, and another plant in New Jersey, Edison. Norwalk’s is smaller, Edison’s is 90,000 square feet. The one in Connecticut is ours, while that of Edison we use it together with a great Italian company that deals with import and transport container, much greater than we. As the person we work with in Italy is also connected to this company, they gave us the possibility of their warehouse. We work mainly on Connecticut and Rhode Island, we have clients in Boston, Providence, we work in New York and New Jersey. That’s our base. And now, let’s hope, on the return to America we also took a client to Washington.
How is work organized in SCP Global Import today?
I’m going around for clients, while my brother’s dealing with delivery. We have another guy who works with us. But we are really tight, in the sense that I drive all day, from morning to night, and my brother delivers from morning to night. When here in Italy it was morning, America was four and he was still working. We have to hire other people, that’s clear. But it’s hard when you’re used to working only in the family. You can fight with your family, you can shout, you can tell your face. Bringing someone else in and telling him “Now you have to do this” is not easy. But we have a guy who works with us and is spectacular: he knows how to work, he jumps in the middle of things, takes, goes, does.
Your idea of growth still passes by the defense of quality. Is that so in coffee?
Absolutely. In coffee, Saturday and Sunday, we’ve got a line out. We have an empty room next door, which we currently use as a deposit, and so many people ask us why we don’t move. But the point is that if you increase the staff, you increase everything, and at that point often lower the costs, you lower the level of production and you lower the quality. When you go to a small tavern you always eat well. If you enter a restaurant with three hundred covers maybe eat the same, but it’s all on another level. In our coffee, for example, the espresso never burns out. No one can say it’s not good. There is my brother-in-law in the car: we have a very old Faema, from the seventies, manual, which goes slowly. But coffee is a show. Even if there is a row, the quality always remains top. And this same mentality also brings it to the import business.
But growing will also mean opening up to new people.
Yes, it will be necessary. As soon as I get back to America, we’ll have to change something. This week, for Easter, we brought ten stalls of chocolate eggs in America and I was in Italy. My brother-in-law was in Sicily because we are closing a contract with the Coffee of the Moors. I also went to find a leading production company si salsa with San Marzano tomatoes: from next month we will be the only importers in the United States of this product. Meanwhile, my brother was alone with ten bankers at the airport and he was dying. So I told him: as soon as I get back, at least two more people have to take them. It’s necessary now.
In the family today, who has inherited more the vision and courage of his father?
I don’t like to say who has it. Everyone says I have it, but I don’t like to say it. My sister blindly trusts me, my brother and my brother, because we are the three who make decisions in the family for anything. First there was my father, then we became the three. And we shared this responsibility because all three must have the respect of honoring that man and becoming men like him. Also my brother-in-law, who is a brother to all intents: he entered the family when we were 16 years old and he 24. And most importantly, when my father got sick, he went into the house, he went to dwell with us, he cared, raised him, put him on the bed, helped him in everything. He really did his son for my father. This is very important to me to say. The respect he had towards my father is the respect a son gives to a father. And not because my father had helped him or anything, but because he felt he had to give him, especially at the worst. When everything happened, we were shocked: in one or two months they told us it was over. He wrapped his sleeves, put everything aside and said: now I have to take care of them. He did as a father for me, for my brother, for my sister and my mother. This is why today we really give him the respect of a brother: he deserved it with all his heart.
What does “change the future of the family” mean to her?
It means that I am trying to change the next, the future of those who will come after us. It is not a matter of Porsche in front of the house, Ferrari or watches. Maybe those are dreams, of course, but that’s not the point. The point is, if my father did all this and almost got it done, then someone else has to do it. Because next one has to be okay. Whoever comes after us must enjoy what has been done. We enjoyed the work my father did to come to America. 57 years to take the family and leave without knowing anything is a devastating thing.
What were the greatest sacrifices you saw to make to your father?
When we arrived in America, we lived in the Bronx, my father and I, in an apartment with three bedrooms, waiting for the rest of the family to arrive. He walked from home to the station: half an hour, forty minutes, with snow, with rain, with hail, with the real cold, even less twenty-four. He did it in the morning, in the afternoon and in the evening. Then he took the subway and went to work in the city. And I only found out after he didn’t do one job. While trying to get an important job in a hospital, he also went to work in a restaurant, in the kitchen, in the American basement, to bring home what he needed. This thing just ran away from him after years. I didn’t know anything. He also worked there, in the kitchen, to keep everyone. And all this before you open the coffee. Those are the real sacrifices..
Is that where your drive to go beyond?
Yes. Because if he has made all these sacrifices at that age, then he cannot say, “Go, now I enjoy it a little.” No. You must destroy yourself, you must fight, you must bring the company to an even higher level. And I will. I must take the company not only on the East Coast, but throughout America. And I will, because I’m already looking for people in Delaware, Colorado, in areas where we can expand, because there is growing a lot. I’ll do it
So the goal is to bring SCP Global Import from East Coast to all of America?
Yes. So many people tell me I’m crazy. But I always say that to move forward in life, to become someone, you must have a dream. If you don’t have a dream, what are you gonna do? It’s so good to dream. And if that dream you can reach him, why not? I’ll throw it. Always..
Where are you from?
We are from the province of Caserta, in Campania. The village is called Capriati al Volturno, and is a village of a thousand inhabitants..
Is there something that feels important to add?
I think I said everything. This is a story that really matters to us, because it speaks of family, sacrifice, work and a man who has left us a way to stay in the world. If today we are still united, if we work like this, if we dream so, it is because everything started from him..
L’articolo From Italy to America, in the name of Father Nicola: the story of Pietro Pirraglia and SCP Global Import comes from IlNewyorkese.
