The Truffle Market was founded in 1998 by Arturo and Brett Ottolenghi (Father and Son). Arturo spent much of his childhood in Piedmonte Italy where he and his family would find white truffles. The passion for mushrooms and food in general rubbed off on his son Brett. The first products were offered through a one page catalog mailed to approximately
5000 gourmets. The original products included jarred truffles, truffle oils, and home mushroom growing kits. Brett and his friend Daniel Rice, designed, built, and maintained the first 7 editions of the web site www.trufflemarket.com. To spur creativity and innovation the website was redesigned and built from scratch each year.

In 2001 The Truffle Market had its first big break when Newsweek wrote an article titled "It Pays to Shop for Your Truffles." Newsweek wrote that Dean & Deluca was selling white truffles at $240 per ounce while, The Truffle Market was at $60 per ounce.

Arturo ran the day to day operations of the business while Brett focused on marketing, and product development. While attending prep-school at St. Andrews (Delaware) and Mercersburg Academy (Pennsylvania) Brett would meet with small local farmers (artisans) in his dorm room to discuss business. Both faculty and peers were often surprised to see cheese makers and cattlemen tracking mud through the dormitory halls. On occasion he would arrange his own field trips to tour these farms.

In 2004 at age 19 Brett moved to Las Vegas to attend UNLV and serve the local restaurant industry. Arturo would fill the retail web site orders and forward fresh truffles to Brett in Vegas. The novelty of a 19 year old supplying top chefs attracted the attention of journalists with the Las Vegas Review Journal, Gourmet Magazine, and Sante Magazine. By Graduation in 2008 The Truffle Market was supplying nearly 35 restaurants and 1500 retail customers with more than 200 of the most
thoroughly sourced ingredients. To better describe the diversity of the product line the name of the company was changed to Artisanal Foods. The Truffle Market is still used as a brand name by Artisanal Foods for truffle and mushroom products.

J. Brett Ottolenghi