Monini Builds on Italy’s Olive Oil Legacy with Modern Investments

Summary

Monini Corporation, one of the largest olive oil com­pa­nies in Italy, pro­duces 32 mil­lion liters of olive oil annu­ally from their head­quar­ters in the Umbrian hills. Despite chal­lenges such as high frag­men­ta­tion in the Italian olive pro­duc­tion sec­tor, the com­pany is invest­ing in mod­ern olive orchards to main­tain pro­duc­tion lev­els and con­tribute to the pro­duc­tion of entirely Italian extra vir­gin olive oil.

Surrounded by his­toric groves and well-known farms, Monini Corporation’s head­quar­ters lies in the cen­tral Italian Umbrian hills.

From there, approx­i­mately 32 mil­lion liters of olive oil are pro­duced annu­ally, posi­tion­ing Monini among the largest olive oil com­pa­nies in the coun­try.

Four of Monini’s extra vir­gin olive oils each secured a Gold Award at the 2025 NYIOOC World Olive Oil Competition.

“Today, about half of what is pro­duced is exported,” Loreto Angelucci, Commercial Director Italy at Monini, told Olive Oil Times.

One of its flag­ship prod­ucts, Gran Fruttato, a blend of only Italian extra vir­gin olive oils, has repeat­edly won in New York over the years.

Since its found­ing in 1920, the Italian pro­ducer has thrived on its rela­tion­ships with olive grow­ers in Umbria.

Across decades of activ­ity, it expanded its reach to many other regions, includ­ing Puglia, and to both small and large pro­duc­ers from other coun­tries.

“The core activ­ity of Monini is select­ing the best qual­ity olive oils and cre­at­ing fin­ished prod­ucts that meet spe­cific stan­dards,” Angelucci said.

The para­me­ters grow­ers need to fol­low to be part of such a net­work are directly upheld by Zefferino Monini, President and CEO of Monini Corporation.

The con­tin­u­ously vary­ing prices of the raw mate­ri­als, such as olives, remain at the core of the ongo­ing nego­ti­a­tions between the com­pany and the olive grow­ers.

“Our President Zefferino is par­tic­u­larly atten­tive to raw mate­r­ial stan­dards. He is will­ing to pay more for qual­ity,” Angelucci stated.

“Zefferino also makes sure that qual­ity is fairly rewarded,” he added, hint­ing at the chal­lenges for many small grow­ers in the coun­try to obtain proper com­pen­sa­tion for their efforts.

A sig­nif­i­cant chal­lenge for Monini, and for the entire olive sec­tor in the coun­try, is the his­tor­i­cally high level of frag­men­ta­tion in Italian olive pro­duc­tion.

“In Italy there are more than 4,000 mills. It is there­fore very dif­fi­cult to cre­ate an inte­grated sup­ply chain,” Angelucci explained.

Those num­bers reflect the scat­tered tra­di­tional olive pro­duc­tion in the coun­try, which is mainly based on small com­pa­nies or fam­ily-run orchards.

“Historical orchards and even mon­u­men­tal olive trees are a mar­vel of nature, a cor­ner­stone of Italian tra­di­tion. Some pro­duce unique and beau­ti­ful olive oils,” Angelucci noted.

According to Angelucci, while tra­di­tional grow­ing is unique and evoca­tive, the olive oil mar­ket as a whole is under­go­ing rapid change, which has a sig­nif­i­cant impact on large play­ers such as Monini.

“Think of Spain instead. There are large pro­duc­ers and large coop­er­a­tives with whom it is pos­si­ble to estab­lish struc­tured rela­tion­ships,” he added.

Added to the impact of the frag­men­ta­tion, high tax­a­tion and the low effi­ciency of the tra­di­tional pro­duc­tion sys­tems weigh sig­nif­i­cantly on over­all pro­duc­tion, prices of the raw mate­ri­als and, there­fore, olive oil prices on the mar­ket.

Besides work­ing with pro­duc­ers, Monini has more recently invested in mod­ern high-den­sity olive orchards to main­tain pro­duc­tion lev­els while reduc­ing costs.

Over the last decades, Italy has seen its over­all olive oil pro­duc­tion sharply decline.

“In recent years we have started our own olive grow­ing ini­tia­tive as part of our sus­tain­abil­ity plan launched in 2020,” noted Angelucci, refer­ring to the company’s 2020 – 2030 sus­tain­abil­ity strat­egy.

“We have planted approx­i­mately 800,000 new olive trees in what we call the Monini Forest, across dif­fer­ent loca­tions, invest­ing in mod­ern olive grow­ing with inno­v­a­tive tech­niques that opti­mize processes,” Angelucci noted.

One of the goals of these invest­ments is to con­tribute to the pro­duc­tion of entirely Italian extra vir­gin olive oil.

“The demand for 100 per­cent Italian olive oil stays strong both inside Italy and abroad,” the Monini offi­cial remarked.

“Today, between 20 and 30 per­cent of our olive oil is 100 per­cent Italian,” Angelucci noted.

According to Monini’s offi­cial, the sig­nif­i­cant price gap between Italian olive oils and other-ori­gin prod­ucts on the mar­ket did not sig­nif­i­cantly deter con­sumers.

(Photo: Monini)

“Even this year, despite the price gap, many con­tin­ued to choose Italian. One liter of Italian extra vir­gin olive oil sells for €9.90, while E.U.-origin olive oils are pro­moted at €5 to €6,” Angelucci remarked.

“That hap­pens abroad as well. Think of France, where we sell a lot of 100 per­cent Italian extra vir­gin olive oils,” the Monini man­ager said.

Among the rea­sons that drive Monini to seek new solu­tions, such as its high-den­sity orchards, is the grow­ing uncer­tainty sur­round­ing cli­mate and yields.

“Italian pro­duc­tion is heav­ily con­cen­trated in Puglia, which pro­vides more than 55 per­cent of the total yields,” Angelucci explained.

“This makes the whole sec­tor vul­ner­a­ble. If drought hits that area, the con­se­quences can be enor­mous,” he noted.

According to the lat­est Monini esti­mates, Italian pro­duc­tion in 2025/2026 is expected to reach 300,000 tons, with more than 160,000 tons poten­tially com­ing from Puglia alone.

“In con­trast, Spain and Portugal have invested a lot in mod­ern olive grow­ing sys­tems that make their sup­ply chains more sta­ble and resilient,” Angelucci remarked.

Multiplied by the grow­ing impacts of cli­mate change, the high vari­abil­ity in yields rever­ber­ates on the price of raw mate­ri­als.

“Those prices are highly unsta­ble,” Angelucci noted. ​“In the last two years we have seen extreme fluc­tu­a­tions that make it very dif­fi­cult to plan invest­ments.”

“A wider adop­tion of mod­ern olive grow­ing mod­els, as in Spain and Portugal, could bring more sta­bil­ity to the entire sup­ply chain,” he added.

The short­age of Italian olive oils in the 2024/2025 sea­son kept prices high.

“Olive oil from the 2024/2025 cam­paign is prac­ti­cally fin­ished because there was so lit­tle of it,” Angelucci com­mented.

“For the next cam­paign, expec­ta­tions are bet­ter and with more avail­abil­ity prices of raw mate­ri­als and con­sumer prices should ease,” he esti­mated.

“In the end, every­thing always comes back to pro­duc­tion. That is where the future of Italian olive oil will be decided,” Angelucci con­cluded.