The flagship of the farm is the mill inaugurated in 2008. The pressing of the olives takes place with an advanced system that allows a continuous cycle milling line (i.e. without interruptions between one phase and another) with cold extraction and constant temperature monitoring at all phases, optimizing processing time to the benefit of the final quality of the oil.
The owner of the company, Giulio Mannelli, manages the entire production chain by personally checking all the preparatory operations from fertilization (strictly organic) to pruning, to all the processes that take place exclusively within the company oil mill. In the mill, all the steps of the manufacturing process are controlled, listed below:
1. Olive harvest: this operation takes place in a limited period of time starting from the first ten days of October, strictly by hand ‘picking’ to preserve the integrity of the drupes.
2. Olive storage: at the end of each day of harvesting the olives are placed in special ventilated crates to avoid crushing and the formation of mold.
3. Defoliation and washing of the olives in automatic machines equipped with an aspiration system to remove the leaves and a forced circulation tank for washing the olives in order to remove leaves, twigs, dust, soil, stones, etc.
4. Extraction: the olives then pass inside the mill where the cold extraction process begins immediately and includes 3 basic steps:
Crushing: an obligatory step of fundamental importance, as it allows the oil drops to escape from the vacuole thanks to the tearing of the oil cell walls.
Kneading: operation consisting of a slow and continuous mixing of the pastes from the olive pressing, aimed at breaking the oil-water emulsion produced during the crushing of the fruits to make it easily separable from the water in the next step.
Pressing: this part concerns the separation of the phases that make up the kneaded paste, namely: oil, vegetation water and solid parts.
All these important steps take place strictly within the same day of the harvest.
5. Storage: the oil produced is stored in stainless steel tanks in a modified atmosphere with Argon, an extremely stable gas, odourless and tasteless, suitable to come into contact with food substances, which allows excellent conservation while keeping all the properties of the product over time. The storage environment is obviously protected from light and at a controlled temperature, in order to preserve the product from rapid oxidation.
6. Bottling: the oil produced is packaged strictly internally by the Company according to HACCP criteria and regulations (analysis and control of critical points).
Bottling is carried out according to the orders we receive daily, thus allowing the oil to always arrive fresh to the end consumer.