Behind the brand

Please describe your business.  How did it evolve? What’s the ethos behind it? 

We are a small family-run business, headed by husband and wife team, Mario and Barbara, who are based in London, with Scilian roots. Our dream was to create an opportunity by investing in our home province of Agrigento, promoting its delicious natural products, of extra virgin olive oil, pistachios and almonds, and encouraging our customers to visit Sicily as a tourist destination. 

In 2016, we bought a beautiful 150 year old stone farm house, set around a courtyard, and surrounded by hundreds of verdant olive trees, some of which are centuries old. We believe in eco-sustainability and have taken great care to farm organically and to harvest using traditional methods, employing local people with their handed-down knowledge. 

Since our first harvest in 2017, we have planted 400 more olive trees as well as 800 almonds and pistachio trees, in order to diversify our future product range. In time, we will renovate our beautiful house into a luxury villa, able to house up to 20 guests, we will add a swimming pool and provide additional services such as Sicilian cooking classes, wellness retreats, experiential holidays and guided walking tours of the surrounding hills and countryside. All this while still working in our “day jobs” and raising three small children!

What makes the business unique/what do your clients tell you they like about the brand? 

Our olive oil is produced using olives grown and harvested exclusively on our olive grove. We have carefully combined the 3 existing olive varieties to produce a blend of cold-pressed extra virgin olive oil, which is unfiltered, for a fuller flavour. Sicilian products are blessed by the heat of sun for most of the year during the growing phase, and are therefore much richer in flavour than products from central and northern Italy. Our estate is nestled on the hill top town, of Montaperto, just a stone’s throw away from Agrigento’s wonderful Valley of the Temples, a UNESCO World Heritage site. Blessed by the salty sea breeze, the soil is enriched with nutrients and minerals, which together with the Sicilian sun’s embrace, provide our olive trees with all of Mother Nature’s perfect ingredients for them to grow and flourish.

Our clients love the rich and herbaceous taste of our extra virgin olive oil, with its moderate pungency. In particular, they can’t get enough of our flavoured olive oils and especially our Little Box of Four, our signature gift set, containing four 100ml tins, of mixed Mediterranean flavours. 

We often receive great comments about our unique cylindrical tins, our elegant glass bottles and our elegant packaging, which combines a classic Italian look with modern graphics. Our logo was created by a local design team, who took their inspiration from the beautiful, original hand-painted majolica tiles which we found in the house as a wonderful surprise!

What makes all the hard-work worth it?

We find great inspiration and satisfaction in promoting Sicilian local products abroad and inspiring people to visit this beautiful part of the world. Our dream for a happy and rewarding retirement, would be to run our home as a luxury villa which can be hired out for special occasions, wellness retreats or experiential holidays.

What is your proudest achievement so far?

I would say, that after three years, it would have to be obtaining planning permission to renovate and build from an Italian Technical Office! We are also proud to have started a business from zero without any prior experience in the food industry or in retail (Barbara is an anaesthetist by day and Mario a building contractor), and to have given it our best shot.

What can our visitors expect from your stand at Top Drawer? What are you most excited about showcasing and why?

We will be promoting our existing Mediterranean flavoured olive oil gift sets, containing chilli, white-truffle, rosemary and lemon, as well as showcasing our recently launched flavoured oils of mandarin, basil, garlic and orange.

Is there anything else our readers might be interested to read about? 

In the short term, our plans will include the addition of products containing almonds and pistachios.

Looking further forward, we are very excited about renovating our beautiful home, with a view to hiring out a luxury villa for events, occasions, holidays and retreats. More great things to come…!