`At Expo 2015, One Olive Oil Producer's Commitment to Sustainability - Olive Oil Times

At Expo 2015, One Olive Oil Producer's Commitment to Sustainability

By Ylenia Granitto
Aug. 3, 2015 09:01 UTC

Expo Milano 2015 is the Universal Exhibition hosted by Italy from May 1 to October 31, 2015, based on the issues of food and nutri­tion. Feeding the Planet, Energy for Life” is the core theme of the event with more than 140 par­tic­i­pants includ­ing coun­tries, inter­na­tional orga­ni­za­tions, and civil soci­ety orga­ni­za­tions, within a struc­ture of 1.1 mil­lion square meters.

Expo 2015 is a great oppor­tu­nity to talk to the world.- Francesco Coppini

The Expo is a show­case for the best food tech­nolo­gies from around the world for the esti­mated 20 mil­lion vis­i­tors who can expe­ri­ence the excel­lence of tra­di­tional food and gas­tron­omy of each coun­try and enjoy the events that will be held in the var­i­ous pavil­ions, like con­fer­ences, con­certs and exhi­bi­tions.

The goal is to edu­cate peo­ple on the devel­op­ment and use of healthy, safe and respect­ful food for all inhab­i­tants of our planet.

The exhi­bi­tion site is divided into four areas by two main axes, Cardo and Decumano, inspired by the struc­ture of the ancient Roman cities. The first, 350 meters long, is entirely occu­pied by the Italian Pavilion with the exhi­bi­tion areas of regions, provinces, munic­i­pal­i­ties and Italian spe­cial­ties. The sec­ond, more than a kilo­me­ter long, is ded­i­cated to the pavil­ions of other coun­tries.

The Bio-Mediterraneum clus­ter is based upon the Mediterranean diet and way of life. It con­nects Albania, Algeria, Egypt, Greece, Lebanon, Malta, Montenegro, San Marino, Serbia, Tunisia and the Sicily Region — the offi­cial part­ner of the clus­ter and coor­di­na­tor of its activ­i­ties — and puts spe­cial empha­sis on par­tic­i­pa­tion and the inte­gra­tion of cul­tures.

Along the Cardo, between the food and bev­er­ages com­pa­nies (Lavazza, San Pellegrino, Granarolo, Citterio, Birrificio Poretti, Martini & Rossi) we find the only EVOO pro­ducer in part­ner­ship with the Italian Pavilion: Coppini Arte Olearia.

It is placed in a por­tion of the pavil­ion called Olive Oil and Olive Tree Square (Piazzetta dell’Olio e dell’Olivo) where Taste Ambassadors enter­tain guests, giv­ing infor­ma­tion on the world of extra vir­gin olive oil: tast­ing tech­niques, food pair­ing and health ben­e­fits. They involve vis­i­tors in the olive oil tast­ing expe­ri­ence, sug­gest­ing a few basic prin­ci­ples of sen­sory analy­sis with the dis­tri­b­u­tion of a tast­ing man­ual.

Expo 2015 is a great oppor­tu­nity to talk to the world. We want to offer aware­ness and knowl­edge to the con­sumers,” said Francesco Coppini. He man­ages the fam­ily busi­ness with his father Ernesto and his broth­ers Paolo, Matteo, and Pier Luigi.

Coppini explained to us that the com­pa­ny’s logis­tics man­age­ment is located in Parma, Emilia Romagna, and the pro­duc­tion areas are in Abruzzo, Apulia and Sicily. In these regions, the asso­ci­a­tion of Italian olive grow­ers works with the com­pany to man­age the olive groves — which include Dritta (Abruzzo), Ogliarola and Coratina (Apulia), Biancolilla and Nocellara (Sicily) — and the press­ing facil­i­ties.

Olive groves at Coppini Arte Olearia

The pro­duc­tion process is cer­ti­fied from the plants to the cus­tomer’s table, through a cer­ti­fi­ca­tion of trace­abil­ity and an iden­tity card on the label, in order to affirm clearly and trans­par­ently the ori­gin of prod­ucts.

The thing we appre­ci­ated, in line with the Expo 2015 con­cept, is the atten­tion paid to sus­tain­able devel­op­ment. The Coppini Arte Olearia head­quar­ters is called the Green Factory,” as it is designed in com­pli­ance with the European Union project known as 20 – 20-20 which pro­vides by 2020 a 20 per­cent increase in the use of renew­able energy sources and the 20 per­cent reduc­tion of green­house gases emis­sions.

The struc­ture is pow­ered by energy obtained using a pho­to­voltaic and geot­her­mal sys­tem. The ulti­mate goal is to reach a 100 – 100-2020” plan, achiev­ing self-suf­fi­ciency through the exclu­sive use of clean energy by 2020.

Our exper­i­men­tal mill in Castelvetrano, Sicily works through a spe­cial sys­tem that reduces the use of water for the pro­duc­tion, and we want to extend an eco-friendly man­u­fac­tur­ing method to all of our struc­tures,” Coppini explained. We have a great respon­si­bil­ity toward the envi­ron­ment and we totally embrace the Expo’s phi­los­o­phy based on a com­mit­ment to a sus­tain­able and fair dis­tri­b­u­tion of food resources.”

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