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The harvesting and production cycle |
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The harvesting
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The quality of extra virgin olive oil depends primarily
on the ripeness and the way olives are harvested.
Our olives are harvested by hand. The correct period
is the "invaiatura" which is when the
olives begin to change colour by presenting a large
quantity of green. Harvesting continues for several
months taking into account the different periods
of maturity for the fruits.
After picking, the olives are transferred to our
mill at Oleificio Primofiore and in few hours they
are pressed into oil.
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Phases of production |
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We produce our extra virgin olive oil from a cold
press process. We have the best continuous cycle and
controlled temperature plants, in the field.
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- The harvested olives are transferred
to the mill daily. At the mill, olives are put in
a special hole in the ground in order to facilitate
the process.
- The olives are picked up by
a conveyor belt and transferred to the top of the
belt where the leaves, stems and twigs are removed
by air fans. Then, the olives fall into the hydro-pneumatic
washing machine where they are washed with circulating
fresh water and remixed by the air force coming
from the bottom of the hopper.
- The clean olives are then transferred
in a second hopper through a vibrating drain grill.
- The next step is to crush the olivesto
form a paste. The paste obtained from the kneading
is then transported from the cylinder oil mill to
the group of “rippling machines” where
it is slowly remixed for a specific period of time
(around 20-30 minutes). Hot water circulates in
the inter-space of these machines in order to maintain
a temperature of around 25° C. With this controlled
temperature we obtain an extra virgin olive oil
from the “cold press process“.
- The paste is now sent
to extractor known as decanter. The centrifugal
force present in the extractors allows for the separation
of the olive oil from the water and other olive
residues.
- The final step is the decantation
of our extra virgin olive oil to maintain its authentic
organoleptic characteristics.
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