Coming from a long tradition built on passion and being able to see the entire course of the olive from the tree to the bottle thanks to the job and the expertise of my team is to me the greatest satisfaction, that I’m always trying to pass on whomever wants to approach this reality.
Mario Morandini, OlioCRU founder
Mission
TRADITION, TECHNOLOGY AND CIRCULAR ECONOMY.
OlioCRU (Olive Research Center) was born in 2012 thanks to Mario Morandini. His foresight came from a long family tradition, tied for generations to the olive-growing field and inherited by his uncle Elio, a man of great wisdom and experience, who could touch Mario’s heart, getting him even more passionate about the Territory he grew up in and its main product, the olive tree.
With this in mind, Mario turned part of his house into an agricultural estate with a state of the art oil mill, later associated to the consortium OlioCRU: Ca’ Bianca Oleum.
His vision aims to the exaltation of the Terroir and its environment, by developing all the working stages with an innovative perspective and awareness of environmental protection.
OlioCRU mission goes beyond the high quality Extra Virgin Oil production, aspiring to implement an eco-sustainable circular economy. The olive is conceived as a whole, enhancing its entire potential by using every single part for different purposes, ranging from the realization of probiotic products, with very high nutritional and antioxidant value, to the creation of fuel energy sources.
In such a way nothing is wasted neither in terms of product nor resources.
Territoir
UPPER GARDA TRENTINO
We are located in Upper Garda, where the landscape is painted with the characteristic green of the olive trees, spread out on the typical terraces surrounding the northern part of the lake. Our agricultural estate extends between Riva del Garda and Arco (TN), the northeastern part in which the olive tree can grow, between the 45° and 46° parallels.
In this last Mediterranean corner the pedoclimatic characteristics have intertwined with history, giving birth to a type of agriculture whose first testimonies date back to II-III Century A.D.
The Garda Ora and the Dolomites, UNESCO World Heritage, contribute to create the favourable climate for the main varieties of olive tree of the area.
The Olive grove
A PERFECT MIX BETWEEN HISTORY AND NATURE
The land owned by OlioCRU stretches from the morainic hills in Arco (TN) in the proximity of the Castle, in the district of San Martino di Arco (TN) to the slopes of Monte Brione, in the municipality of Riva del Garda.
This grove produces the olives for one of our top products Garda Extra Virgin Olive Oil, that has been certified with the protected designation of origin “GARDA DOP TRENTINO” in accordance with the production and quality standards of its strict specifications.
To the traditional one, we added an experimental olive grove, where we grow different Italian crops, in order to study their agronomic management and to develop an ultra-precise method with the lowest possible environmental impact.
Besides our own olives we select batches of chosen high quality Italian olives to produce Extra Virgin Oil Cuvées with different varieties, expanding the range of products for different tasting and food pairing.
THE OIL MILL
OlioCru
RIVA DEL GARDA | TRENTINO | ITALY
ONE OF THE MOST MODERN AND TECHNOLOGICAL IN EUROPE
The expertise and the study throughout many milling seasons have led us to the creation of the new OlioCRU oil mill, one of the most technological and modern in Europe. Here our team is engaged in working with a strict protocol controlled by a centralized management.
The olive harvest is carried out by variety, in order to verify the ideal ripening state.
The milling is performed after a careful selection of the collected olives, which pass a stage of cleaning and sanitation through water tanks combined with driers and rinsers on a rack, like in a real SPA.
The extraction is made by pitting the olives, separating the pulp from the pit. In this way it is possible to obtain an oil in lower quantity but with excellent quality and organoleptic characteristics.
At a later stage the oil is filtered with a highly technological process. All the stages of the production are performed in a protected non-oxidizing atmosphere.
Olives and their many resources
CIRCULAR ECONOMY
At OlioCRU we strongly believe in human power to act against the global environmental impact throughout many single little actions. The circular economy is part of this vision.
Through a long research and thanks to the collaboration of many qualified and motivated professionals we have tried to achieve this goal, conceiving our product, the olive, as a source of many assets. We found a way to exploit our product in its entirety, creating with the waste material a range of products that make the most of the olive potential, a high nutritional and antioxidant value.
How it works?
The paste obtained by crushing the pitted olives after the oil extraction is turned, in a completely natural way, into a pure olive dust with a very high level of polyphenols, fibers, minerals and vitamins and, most of all, with a very important PREBIOTIC action.
As far as it concerns the pits, we separate the seed from the woody part. This one becomes a precious energy source as fuel, while the olive seed oil is extracted out of the seed, with important antioxidant qualities, by a process of cold pressing.
Research hasn’t come to an end yet. Other precious ingredients, which could be used in the food and cosmeceutical industry, are still under study.