Olive oil marketing the Italian way

The olive oil and wine producers of the Italian province of Imperia turn to the Hungarian, Czech and Polish markets for new sales opportunities. The chamber of commerce invited purchasers and journalists from the three countries to the town of Imperia to celebrate the new olive oil at the end of November. Hungary was represented by Anna Gáti from Delifood International Kft. and the reporter of Trade Magazin. We met Rossella Boeri in the mountain village of Badalucco. With her husband, Franco they have a family enterprise (founded in 1900) that not only grows olives but processes them as well in an old mill, together with the olives grown by nearby farmers. From now until March the wheels are turning night and day in the mill, since olives need to be pressed within 24 hours of picking for the best quality. From 1 kg of olives 160-180 g of olive oil is pressed, but later in the season this goes up to 220-230 g; in this old mill the process takes two and a half hours. Anna Gáti of Delifood International Kft., an importer of Italian food products’ thinks that there is demand in Hungary for quality olive oils and wines from small producers, together with pesto, ham or salami. The Italian Institute for Foreign Trade (ICE) organised our trip and the president, Paola Guida told our magazine that they saw great potential in the Central and Eastern European member states of the EU. ICE spends an annual EUR 1.8 million on promoting food products from Liguria. Last year she spent a few days in Budapest and was really impressed with the city. She added that olive oil from the Lake Garda region was the most expensive in Italy, EUR 8-18/l, compared with the average price of EUR 5-8/l. Raineri is one of the bigger family enterprises with its annual production of 2.2 million litres. We went to see the production facilities where export manager Pino Costa was glad to show us around and told that 30 percent of the olives they processed was from the region (their 4,000 olive trees provided 70 percent of the yield in the Imperia region), but the rest was from other parts of Italy. Their biggest market is the US, Germany and the United Kingdom. They also produce private label products for Coop (Italy) and Tesco and Safeway (UK). At the dinner, Pino Costa told our magazine company employed three professional tasters, because the yield was different every year but the oil’s quality had to be the same – just like in champagne production.