Costa d’Oro, a historic oil mill in Spoleto,presents L’Italiano today. Under one brand, a quality extra virgin olive oil from only Italian olives. A ‘100% Made in Italy‘, fully tracked to ISO standards – at drupe to drop – with geolocations on Google Streetview.
It is the most majestic project to revitalize the Italian olive supply chain, the credit for which, ironically, goes to a French group. Avril, the industry’s third largest global player, just 18 months after acquiring Costa d’Oro is investing in 4,000 hectares of olive groves in the Bel Paese. Chapeau!
100% Made in Italy, The True Italian of Gold Coast
The Italian extra virgin olive oil-already on the shelf, at an affordable but fair price (€6.99/bottle)-is made exclusively from olives grown and pressed in Italy. A real Italian, as Toto Cotugno put it. This is a far cry from the farce of so-called ‘Italic oil‘ hypothesized by Coldiretti in 2018, where blending with foreign oils up to 49.9 percent was allowed.
The Italian
is supplied by‘more than 50 mills located in 7 regions of the country (73 percent in Puglia and 27 percent between Sicily, Calabria, Basilicata and Umbria) on a total of about 4 thousand cultivated hectares.’ With an estimated production of 2 million liters, for the 2019-2020 oil campaign. Prevalent cultivar is Coratina, followed by Ogliarola, Carolea and Leccino.
Current suppliers have already been selected through second-party audits. And they will be joined from next month by members of the main trade associations, Unaprol and Italia Olivicola, through special interprofessional agreements.
Traceability and geolocation, the added value of The Italian
The added value of L’Italiano is an advanced traceability system, certified to ISO 22005:2007. With an unprecedented level of transparency, integrating news about the times (of olive harvesting and milling) and places (agricultural areas and mills).
Lot code and QR code provide easy access from the individual bottle to detailed information about it through the Gold Coast website. With the ability among other things to see images of crops and mills, thanks to integration with Google Streetview.
The same technology will be extended to other productions in which the Spoleto-based company is a leader in Italy. Namely:
– organic extra virgin olive oil (18.9 percent of the market by volume), which is growing markedly (+9.9 percent), and
– unfiltered EVOO (36.8 percent of the market, in a segment that occupies 6.5 percent of the category).
The presidium of premium segments at the mass market level strengthen the brand‘s position, ranked third in Italy with a turnover of 156.8 million euros (2018, +9.6 percent) and more than 40.5 million liters of production (including IDM, MDD and bulk). With the distinctive plus of having been able to reduce promotional pressure (-3.2%).
Gold Coast, towards leadership of 100% Italian EVOO
The value of‘100% made in Italy’ olive juice is already established and continues to grow. In Italy alone, according to the latest Nielsen Observatory 2019 data, 100% Italian extra virgin olive oil is worth 19.4% of volumes in retail distribution, up 6.9% (2018 data).
‘We strongly believe in the Italian product, which we consider to be the best extra virgin oil in the world in terms of quality and organoleptic characteristics’ (Ivano Mocetti, general manager of Costa d’Oro).
Costa d’Oro’s goal, therefore, is to lead the market for L’Italiano vero, looking at the domestic market as well as the global market. Theacquisition of the brand by Avril (the world’s third-largest player in olive oil, with €7 billion in turnover) in May 2018 has already enabled the Spoleto-based oil mill to expand sales to 80 countries. Increasing the export share, which already accounts for 45 percent of sales.
The vision
The French property’s mission is to implement the prestige and diffusion of the Costa d’Oro brand.‘Our goal,’ explains Olivier Delamea, president of Côte d’Or as well as general manager of Avril’s Oils and Condiments segment. is to lead the Gold Coast brand to become a global reference in high-quality olive oil in new markets, especially in China and North America. Combining innovation, traceability and natural origin’.
However, the vision is broader and involves the entire olive oil supply chain in the Bel Paese. ‘The goal is not only commercial but also to give value to the Italian supply chain and to a product of great organoleptic and productive quality, too often in crisis due to intrinsic market dynamics. We want to do this by sticking to the integrated supply chain model, uniting all the players in the chain. Starting with the agricultural world and reaching out to industry and large-scale retail, in the wake of the specificity of the oil sector and experiences already implemented in other countries’.
The next step will be productive investments. Namely, the purchase or lease of 1,000 hectares of land where to develop dedicated supply chains. The varieties to be planted will be suitable for intensive cultivation (600-800 plants per hectare) to allow mechanized harvesting and produce at competitive prices. Negotiations are already under way in Tuscany, Basilicata and Apulia.
The redemption of Italian oil production
While waiting for new plantings, Italian production is growing again in the 2019-2020 oil campaign. The harvest is estimated at 321 thousand tons, up 83.4 percent from the low of 175 thousand tons in 2018, but still far from the 429 thousand tons in 2017, and 475 thousand tons in 2015 (source: Ismea based on Istat).
Despite Xylella, Puglia is confirmed as the leader in the recovery, with shares approaching 60 percent of the entire national EVOO production (+175 percent over the previous year), thanks in part to the recovery of olive-growing territories in the provinces of Bari, BAT and Foggia.
The rest of the South also did well, with Basilicata almost quadrupling last year’s production, Campania marking +52 percent and Molise +40 percent (source Cia – Italian Farmers, Italia olivicola, Aifo).
Dario Dongo, lawyer and journalist, PhD in international food law, founder of WIISE (FARE - GIFT - Food Times) and Égalité.
Professional journalist since January 1995, he has worked for newspapers (Il Messaggero, Paese Sera, La Stampa) and periodicals (NumeroUno, Il Salvagente). She is the author of journalistic surveys on food, she has published the book "Reading labels to know what we eat".
