Salov Renews Its Commitment to the National Made in Italy Day with Filippo Berio: Olive Oil Celebrated as a Symbol of Italian Excellence Worldwide

23 May 2025  - Corporate

Salov Renews Its Commitment to the National Made in Italy Day with Filippo Berio: Olive Oil Celebrated as a Symbol of Italian Excellence Worldwide

Open Day for Students and Keynote by Marketing Director Emanuele Siena at the Ministry of Enterprises and Made in Italy: Two Initiatives Mark Salov’s Active Participation in the Second Edition of the Event
Objective: To Educate Future Generations on Quality Olive Oil and Promote Its Global Appreciation

Viareggio, April 11, 2025 – Salov SpA, a historic industrial group and one of the world’s leading players in the olive oil sector, owner of the heritage brands Filippo Berio (with over 150 years of history) and Sagra, has once again taken an active role in celebrating National Made in Italy Day, held this year on April 15. As part of the initiative, Salov took part in “Open Companies” and the Assitol conference “The Olive Oil Profession: The Excellence of Italian Know-How,” held in Rome on April 9.

Open Day: Salov Welcomes Students to Villa Filippo Berio
For the second year in a row, Salov opened the doors of its estate, Villa Filippo Berio in Vecchiano (PI), on Friday, April 11, to around 30 senior students from the Agricultural Technical Institute Nicolao Brancoli Busdraghi of Mutigliano (Lucca), who are studying olive cultivation, along with their teachers. The goal: to offer firsthand insight into the world of olive oil.

As part of the “Open Companies” initiative—spearheaded by Assitol, the Italian Association of the Olive Oil Industry, to mark the April 15 celebration—Salov welcomed the students to its agricultural estate to help them discover the company’s values, products, and production processes. The visit included an olive oil tasting, highlighting extra virgin olive oil as a global icon of Italian excellence.

The day featured a tour of the olive grove at Villa Filippo Berio, a unique site within the European agri-industrial landscape designed as a center where olive oil takes the spotlight. This open-air lab supports innovative research in collaboration with CNR-IBE and universities in Italy and abroad. Projects include precision farming techniques, sustainable agriculture, biodiversity enhancement, and cultivar resistance to Verticillium, a fungus affecting olive trees.

The estate is also home to the Life Resilience project, a European initiative aimed at developing cultivation techniques and plant genotypes that can resist the Xylella Fastidiosa pathogen. Officially concluded by the European Commission in fall 2022 with highly positive outcomes, the project continues through field tests on 18 potentially Xylella-resistant genotypes, housed in a dedicated section of the olive grove.

“We are truly pleased to have welcomed students from the Agricultural Technical Institute Nicolao Brancoli Busdraghi once again this year,” said Gianmarco Laviola, CEO of Salov SpA. “Initiatives like this are a valuable opportunity to highlight not only the excellence and tradition of olive oil—an emblem of Made in Italy—but also to foster intergenerational knowledge-sharing. This is a commitment we enthusiastically renew, as we firmly believe the real strength of our industry lies in people, their passion, and their deep connection with the land. Today we were able to show students the extent of Salov’s daily dedication to research and development, ensuring quality and innovation in every bottle of Filippo Berio or Sagra olive oil. We’re focused on addressing future challenges and promoting solutions to make the olive oil sector more sustainable and forward-looking.”

Assitol Conference: “The Olive Oil Profession – The Excellence of Italian Know-How”
As part of the Made in Italy Day celebrations, Salov also participated in the conference titled “The Olive Oil Profession – The Excellence of Italian Know-How,” hosted by Assitol on April 9 at Palazzo Piacentini in Rome.

During the event, Emanuele Siena, Salov’s Marketing Director, highlighted the company’s pivotal role in the global market, sharing two case studies focused on key international markets: Brazil and the Philippines. These markets—chosen for their distinctive consumer habits and cultural backgrounds—showcase Salov’s ability to adapt and successfully promote Italian olive oil in vastly different contexts.

“In Brazil and the Philippines, the olive oil culture has different roots—Portuguese in Brazil, Spanish in the Philippines—and consumption habits vary greatly from those in Italy,” explained Siena. “Thanks to our international marketing expertise, Salov has tailored its strategies to each market with excellent results. Today, Filippo Berio is the leading Italian brand in both countries, further cementing our leadership in the global olive oil sector, with a presence in over 70 markets worldwide.”

SALOV SpA: A Century-Old Italian Icon in Olive Oil Excellence

Founded in 1919 by Giovanni Silvestrini—longtime business partner of Filippo Berio, the founder of the eponymous brand—and a group of entrepreneurs from Lucca, SALOV SpA quickly established itself as a benchmark for the Lucca region on the global stage.

Headquartered in Massarosa, in the province of Lucca, SALOV is today one of the largest companies in the olive oil sector, boasting consolidated net revenues of approximately €518 million and 105 million liters sold in 2023. Since 2015, the company has been part of the international Bright Food Group.

SALOV has a long-standing presence in the Italian market through its heritage brand Sagra. In late 2019, it introduced the Filippo Berio brand in Italy for the first time—an international icon with over 150 years of history and a market-leading position in the USA, UK, Belgium, Switzerland, and Hong Kong.

In Italy, Filippo Berio offers a dedicated product line designed to meet the needs of increasingly quality-conscious consumers who demand traceability and sustainability. Through the proprietary Metodo Berio, every stage of the production process is tracked and certified—starting from the field—based on the principles of integrated and sustainable farming practices.