Forbes introduces the KING of Panettone. Vincenzo Tiri, born in 1981, is one of Italy's most prominent leavening experts. Born into a family tradition, he spent his childhood in the family workshop, where he was surrounded by sourdough starter, flour, eggs, butter, and sugar. He learned the skill of leavening at a young age, following in the footsteps of his greatest masters, grandfather Vincenzo and father Michele. After years of training with renowned national and international pastry chefs, he returned to Acerenza (Potenza) to pursue his greatest ambition: making the world's best panettone. Today, he is an internationally renowned pastry chef who has received new recognition: in Saint-Vith, Belgium, he donated his yeast to the Sourdough Library, a one-of-a-kind space established in 2013 by the Puratos Group to preserve biodiversity and the know-how of using natural yeast in baking. The "Tiri" yeast, registered under number 161, thereby adds to the collection stored at the Sourdough Institute, a place where past and future meet thanks to the devotion and dedication of Puratos professionals. Originally founded in Italy, the Library relocated to Belgium in 2013, where it has become one of the Sourdough Institute's important areas; here, visitors may embark on a multimedia journey that displays how yeast use has changed over the centuries. The first sourdough yeast to enter the Belgian library was an Italian variety known as "Pugliese", which was used to make the famous Altamura bread from durum wheat flour. However, the stories contained in the Saint-Vith freezers are extremely diverse: there's the Japanese number 100, made from rice sake, and the Mexican number 72, which is regularly fed with a mixture of eggs, lime, and beer.