How a Family Mill in Florence Built Five Decades of Olive Oil Craftsmanship

Summary

Frantoio Il Mandorlo, a fam­ily-run olive oil com­pany in Florence, recently cel­e­brated over 50 years of oper­a­tion, receiv­ing recog­ni­tion for their high-qual­ity organic olive oil. The com­pany has evolved from tra­di­tional mill­stones to mod­ern milling tech­nolo­gies, focus­ing on sus­tain­abil­ity and com­mu­nity engage­ment by sup­port­ing local ini­tia­tives and pro­mot­ing envi­ron­men­tal stew­ard­ship. The com­pa­ny’s com­mit­ment to qual­ity and inno­va­tion, as well as their ded­i­ca­tion to pre­serv­ing the land and tra­di­tion, has posi­tioned them as a lead­ing ref­er­ence point for olive grow­ers in the area.

Frantoio Il Mandorlo recently marked more than 50 years of activ­ity, evolv­ing from a local milling oper­a­tion into a ref­er­ence point for olive grow­ers in the Florence area while con­tin­u­ously updat­ing its tech­nol­ogy. In 2002, founder Lino Lonari received the Fiorino d’Oro, the high­est honor awarded by the city of Florence to indi­vid­u­als whose work brings pres­tige to the city and its insti­tu­tions.

“We have reached the third gen­er­a­tion car­ry­ing for­ward the tra­di­tion begun in 1974 by my grand­fa­ther, a truly vision­ary fig­ure,” said Daniel Ronca, who runs the com­pany along­side his brother Manuel, their par­ents Luciano Ronca and Renza Lonari.

“He started as a share­crop­per and ran a small flower stand before build­ing a thriv­ing com­pany,” Ronca said. ​“The 1970s were favor­able years after the eco­nomic boom, but it still took courage and fore­sight to invest in olive milling. Today, we rec­og­nize him as one of the first in the area to intro­duce mod­ern milling tech­nolo­gies.”

Lonari named the com­pany Il Mandorlo, Italian for ​“the almond tree,” after the almond trees that once lined the Florentine hills where the mill was estab­lished. Initially equipped with tra­di­tional mill­stones and presses, the facil­ity tran­si­tioned to con­tin­u­ous-cycle tech­nol­ogy in the mid-1990s.

The estate includes a seven-hectare olive grove at ele­va­tions between 250 and 300 meters, with approx­i­mately 2,000 trees of the main Tuscan vari­eties, Frantoio, Leccino and Moraiolo. Many of the trees were restored after the his­toric 1985 frost. More recently planted Leccio del Corno trees com­plete the grove, from which the com­pany pro­duces its organic blend, Il Mandorlo Bio.

The oil’s refined pro­file, marked by medium to intense green fruiti­ness with notes of freshly cut grass, arti­choke leaf and a hint of almond, earned the fam­ily com­pany a Gold Award at the 2025 NYIOOC.

“When my father took over in 2017, he trained as a pro­fes­sional taster and became a panel leader, which proved essen­tial for improv­ing our qual­ity,” Ronca said. ​“My brother and I joined the man­age­ment in 2020, and I also became a taster. Producers need to be able to eval­u­ate their own oils, and I had already been exposed to tast­ing from a young age.”

Having grown up in the grove and the mill, both broth­ers devel­oped an early inter­est in olive farm­ing and milling. After com­plet­ing degrees in agri­cul­tural sci­ences and biotech­nol­ogy, Ronca recently began a PhD pro­gram related to the sec­tor.

“Manuel mainly han­dles admin­is­tra­tion, while I over­see the milling process,” Ronca said. ​“At the same time, I am pur­su­ing doc­toral stud­ies to strengthen my sci­en­tific back­ground, which I believe is essen­tial for meet­ing today’s chal­lenges.”

The com­pany pro­duces its own line of extra vir­gin olive oil and also pro­vides milling ser­vices for third par­ties. It cur­rently oper­ates a lat­est-gen­er­a­tion Alfa Laval plant designed to min­i­mize water use while max­i­miz­ing polyphe­nol reten­tion.

“We work with pas­sion, build­ing on what my grand­fa­ther began and on the qual­ity stan­dards my father fur­ther raised,” Ronca said. ​“My grand­fa­ther also con­verted the com­pany to organic pro­duc­tion as early as 2001.”

Environmental stew­ard­ship remains cen­tral to the company’s phi­los­o­phy. Ronca noted that his aca­d­e­mic back­ground includes envi­ron­men­tal sci­ences, which he con­tin­ues to deepen to bet­ter address cli­mate-related chal­lenges while main­tain­ing a com­mit­ment to sus­tain­abil­ity.

However, man­ag­ing pests and dis­eases organ­i­cally has become increas­ingly com­plex and costly. In response, the com­pany intro­duced a con­ven­tional pro­duc­tion line while main­tain­ing envi­ron­men­tally respon­si­ble prac­tices across all oper­a­tions.

“The use of chem­i­cals that accu­mu­late in the soil and affect microflora and micro­fauna should be min­i­mized,” Ronca said. ​“This area is ideal for olive oil pro­duc­tion, but it is also excep­tion­ally beau­ti­ful. We have a respon­si­bil­ity to pro­tect it.”

Located in the hills over­look­ing Fiesole, the estate has also expanded into oleo­tourism, offer­ing guided farm vis­its and olive oil tast­ings.

“A qual­ity-focused com­pany must also be engaged with its com­mu­nity,” Ronca said. ​“As pro­duc­ers deeply con­nected to this land, we feel an eth­i­cal respon­si­bil­ity.”

In recent years, the mill has joined two com­mu­nity ini­tia­tives. It sup­ports the Rinasciamo 4.0 asso­ci­a­tion by pro­vid­ing milling ser­vices for a pub­lic olive grove man­aged by the city of Florence. The project sup­ports vic­tims of vio­lence and vul­ner­a­ble indi­vid­u­als through har­vest­ing and edu­ca­tional activ­i­ties.

The com­pany also par­tic­i­pates as an indi­rect part­ner in a Tuscany Region-funded project aimed at restor­ing olive trees in pub­lic parks, which con­cludes each year with a com­pe­ti­tion among the oils pro­duced.

“We hope these ini­tia­tives help raise aware­ness about the impor­tance of car­ing for olive trees,” Ronca said. ​“Land aban­don­ment caused by a lack of gen­er­a­tional renewal is a seri­ous issue. We are work­ing to recover aban­doned groves in the area and bring them back into pro­duc­tion.”

“In recent years, the effects of cli­mate change and ris­ing pro­duc­tion costs have made pro­duc­ing high-qual­ity extra vir­gin olive oil increas­ingly chal­leng­ing,” Ronca added. ​“That is why con­tin­u­ing to learn and adapt is essen­tial. Awards like the NYIOOC Gold moti­vate us to keep mov­ing for­ward.”