23 September 2021 - Corporate
SALOV presents its first Sustainability Report. Continuous improvement is the driving force behind the Group’s innovation and sustainable growth
Reduced water and energy consumption, lower accident rate than the national average and increased training: these are some of the results that SALOV is able to boast in its first Sustainability Report, a comprehensive and transparent document that provides an overview of the Company and its performance. It has been well rewarded by its constant investments in R&D and innovation and by a continuous improvement-based approach.
23 September 2021 - Corporate
SALOV presents its first Sustainability Report. Continuous improvement is the driving force behind the Group’s innovation and sustainable growth
Vecchiano (PI), 23 September 2021 – SALOV SpA, one of the world’s largest companies in the olive oil sector with a consolidated net turnover in 2020 of approximately 335.6 million euros and 120 million litres sold, presented its first Sustainability Report today at Villa Filippo Berio di Vecchiano (Pisa), a document that offers a complete and transparent overview of the Company, its activities and its projects, reporting on its performance in 2020 and telling SALOV’s story in first person.
SALOV and its commitment to continuous improvement.
Sustainability, for SALOV, is not just a question of drafting performance reports, but an essential cornerstone that guides corporate strategies in the environmental, social and economic fields, as part of a path of continuous improvement. The first Sustainability Report is therefore only the latest step in a journey that began in the 1990s with the establishment of what is now the Villa Filippo Berio farm, one of the largest olive-growing properties in Tuscany with its 75 hectares of olive groves. Today, Villa Filippo Berio is a veritable open-air laboratory where experiments are under way, in collaboration with the CNR (National Research Council), to identify solutions to improve the quality and sustainability of olive growing by developing cutting-edge production techniques for real-time monitoring of the entire production environment with smart sensors on the plant and on the ground, as well as drones and satellites.
In fact, research and innovation are at the heart of continuous improvement, a distinctive feature of the Company.
“For us, innovating means producing better while consuming less,” said Fabio Maccari, CEO of SALOV SpA. “It is thanks to research and innovation that SALOV is now aligned both with the Sustainable Development Goals of the UN 2030 Agenda and with the Green Deal and Farm to Fork of the European Union. We always allocate part of our resources to R&D and to building partnerships with leading academic and research centres. Without these aspects, we could not have achieved our current results in terms of efficiency
of the production cycle, reduced water and energy consumption, optimized management of production waste and reduced emissions into the environment.”Continuous structural investments and technological updates since 2004 have led SALOV to have one of the most advanced and efficient plants in the world both in terms of production capacity and environmental management systems, located in the municipality of Massarosa.
Main results in relation to environmental impact.
- SALOV has helped to reduce carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions thanks to a trigeneration energy plant. The plant produces almost 50% of the electricity required by the factory and, thanks to the recovery and conversion of thermal energy, provides 50% of the cooling energy. The electricity produced is fed into the grid, reducing its cost and increasing its efficiency in terms of environmental sustainability. Despite a 21.7% increase in total electricity consumption compared to 2019 – which is natural considering that in 2020 the Company recorded a 39% increase in the volumes produced – SALOV actually reduced its specific consumption of electricity and thermal energy per tonne of product on an annual basis.
- Carbon monoxide (CO) emissions: 48.44% decrease in direct CO emissions (from 609 kg in 2019 to 314 kg in 2020);
- Water consumption: a 10% decrease in specific unit consumption compared to 2019 (litres of water consumed vs. litres of oil produced)
- The wastewater situation, managed by a treatment plant sized for the capacity of a town of 20,000 inhabitants and monitored by the company’s internal laboratory through weekly chemical-physical sample analyses, is showing a constant improvement in the quality of the water returned to the environment.
The Berio Method: innovation with a concrete impact on sustainability
The best proof of how at SALOV continuous improvement creates a virtuous circle of sustainable innovation can be seen in the Berio Method, a project launched at the end of 2019 to support the introduction of Filippo Berio on the Italian market, a prestigious brand of extra virgin olive oils, already on shelves in more than 70 countries with a solid reputation for excellence.
The Berio Method consists of a fully traceable and certified production process that is based on the principles of sustainability inherent in integrated farming. With the Berio Method, SALOV is responsible for the environmental impact and quality of the olive oil from the field onwards by involving farms, which are invited to participate in a process of continuous, communal and shared improvement.
There are four cornerstones of the Berio Method:
- Environmental sustainability through the adoption of integrated farming protocols by the farms supplying the raw materials, proven by specific certifications.
- Traceability, with a complete and comprehensive system for all extra virgin oils.
- The stipulation of chemical-physical and organoleptic parameters that are even stricter than the current regulations.
- Certification of the entire process by a third party, in our case SGS, which certifies both product quality and environmental sustainability.
“With this project we are providing a concrete stimulus for growing excellent olives, offering a market outlet for sustainable production of a certain quality, and recognising the producers by providing adequate remuneration for the higher costs faced,” stressed Fabio Maccari. “At the same time, the Berio Method puts us in a position to stand out in the crowded extra virgin olive oil category by offering a premium range with highly distinctive and significant customer appeal.“
Employee well-being and safety, a crucial asset.
The first and most important indicator of the importance SALOV attaches to social sustainability is the focus on the well-being and safety of the people within the company’s community.
The progressive decrease in the rate of accidents in the workplace, which in recent years has been well below the national average for the sector, is the result of an approach to safety based on strict adherence to company protocols, the periodic review of all processes in order to identify possible solutions for improvement and the involvement of staff at all levels through an intense special training programme, which saw an increase of 162.2% in dedicated hours (from 527 hours in 2018 to 1382 hours in 2020).
SALOV’s excellence in the area of safety was also confirmed in 2020, at the onset of the Covid-19 emergency, when prompt action from management meant that the company prepared in advance for the arrival of the virus in Europe. In fact, when Covid-19 arrived in Italy in March 2020, SALOV had already implemented the proper safety protocols, and was therefore able to react extremely quickly: together with the exceptional cleanliness of the premises and the distribution of Personal Protective Equipment, it made arrangements to reduce on-site work with the implementation, where possible, of remote working.
Without ever losing sight of the importance of safeguarding the health of its business community, SALOV increased stocks and guaranteed deliveries, making sure to honour the terms of existing contracts on time.
The efforts made in this area by the Company have been recognized by employees who, in a feedback survey administered between November and December 2020 and in which 59% of the staff participated, rated SALOV’s ability to intervene at 9.05/10.
The relationship with the the local area and the importance of beauty.
In its more than 150 years of history, SALOV has always been a discreet and reassuring presence and today is a landmark in the area.
In 2020 SALOV supported the local community, its local area and various non-profit organizations in the area through initiatives such as donating trees and plants to redevelop the area in front of the plant, donating PPE to the Versilia hospital and donating PPE to the Municipal Administration as well as technical equipment for remote work.
The impact of the company’s facilities on the natural environment and landscape is also part of its relationship with the local area. In this sense, all the decisions and operations to modernize and renovate the Massarosa plant are always carried out with particular care, respecting the landscape.
“We are convinced that beauty should play a significant role in decision-making and in business life because the well-being of people and the quality of the business climate depend on the how pleasant the workplace is,” explained the CEO of SALOV. “With the Cisterne d’Autore (Designer Tanks) project, for example, we entrusted a well-known street artist with the task of decorating some of our storage tanks so that they became features that were fully integrated with the surrounding landscape and in a dialogue with it, bringing beauty both inside and outside the perimeter of the plant.”
This first Sustainability Report marks an important date for SALOV: not a milestone but one more step forward in a process towards continuous improvement, a path that is stepping into in the future with confidence thanks to investments in people, in technology and innovation.
SALOV SpA was founded in 1919 by Giovanni Silvestrini, a long-standing business partner of Filippo Berio, founder of the brand of the same name, and a group of entrepreneurs from Lucca. The company quickly became a symbol of Lucca around the world. SALOV is based in Massarosa, in the province of Lucca, and is one of the largest companies in the olive oil sector with a consolidated net turnover in 2020 of approximately 335 million Euros and 120 million litres sold. Since 2015 it has been a part of the Bright Food International Group.
The SALOV Group has always been on the Italian market with the historic Sagra brand and, at the end of 2019, for the first time in Italy, it launched the Filippo Berio brand, a brand with over 150 years of history worldwide and in a leading position in the USA, UK and Russia, as well as in Belgium, Switzerland and Hong Kong.
Filippo Berio is present in Italy with a dedicated range, one capable of responding to an increasingly discerning consumer in terms of quality and, above all, traceability and sustainability. Thanks to the Berio Method, in fact, every stage of the production process can be traced and is certified starting from the field and the application of sustainable integrated production techniques.
