For this new chapter of our technical column ‘Valente Solutions’, we went down to Campania, more precisely to the town of Sessa Aurunca, to meet a very special customer (and product); Giacomo Galdiero, Managing Director of AOP Luce.
Giacomo belongs to a family of fruit growers for several generations and today runs a producer organisation (O.P. Giotto) with 60 member companies and about 450 hectares of orchards.
The area of Sessa Aurunca, where we met Giacomo and where the factory of over 8,000 square metres for the storage and processing of fruit is located, is a very suitable area for fruit growing, especially peaches, nectarines, apricots, persimmons and above all the famous Melannurca, a unique product that is only produced in Campania.
The Melannurca Campana, in fact, is a Protected Geographical Indication product and displays unique characteristics in the range of apples on the Italian market. Its cultivation is linked to elements of Campania’s rural civilisation, with traditions and glimpses of daily life dating back to Roman times.
Melannurca apples are also distinguishable from most other apples by their very special post-harvest treatment, known as ‘reddening’: the apples, picked while still unripe, are left to ripen for about 15 days on straw beds, the so-called ‘melai’; to ensure uniform colouring, the apples are turned by hand at least two or three times, exposing the greenest parts of the fruit to the light and favouring their typical bright red colour.
On this video we are inside an apple orchard of about 6 hectares covered with anti-hail shading net, as the annurca apple is a very delicate fruit and for a correct ripening process it must absorb light but at the same time be protected from sunburn. This system has a layout of 6 metres by 4 metres and is designed to meet the customer’s needs.
At the end of this wonderful visit, we asked Giacomo the usual question: why did you choose Valente? ‘We chose Valente because of the quality of the product and customer service, the professionalism and the costant support they always guarantee.’
As always, we thank Giacomo for his trust. We are proud to be able to contribute to such an important project for the entire fruit and vegetable chain in Campania. Thank you!