Article by Matteo Donelli
The love of one's land Puglia.
Dramatic Wheat Crisis.
We are in the historical period that goes from 2007 to 2010: wheat prices in Italy were strongly “wandering” until they reached a dizzying collapse. The farmers of the Peninsula were discouraged and discouraged and the abandonment of crops was accentuated. For these reasons, the quality of Italian wheat was increasingly poor and the industry increasingly preferred to import durum wheat from third countries, especially Canada. Puglia has always been the region where most of the Italian durum wheat is produced. A region that by extension of the territory, microclimate is the land most suited to the cultivation of this cereal.
The Granoro company was already a point of reference for the production of durum wheat for all Apulian farmers. “Something brilliant had to be invented to avoid making the agriculture of an entire region dead and buried with immense damage to the level of occupation”. Giandomenico Marcone Purchasing Manager is a river in flood: "
“At the time we asked ourselves among the company workers: is it possible, also for Italy, to produce quality durum wheat, without necessarily buying it abroad? The answer was yes. Inside the company in a moment of crisis there was great excitement for a new path to be traced. The intuition was grasped with great courage by Marina Mastromauro, daughter of the founder (Cav. Attilio Mastromauro, true dean of pasta who died at the ripe old age of 102), and is still in charge of the company.
Thus was born the Dedicated Project: the pasta made only with durum wheat from Puglia.
Dedicato is the result of a long work, a journey made up of people, who together shared ideas, visions, committed and worked for a common goal to produce a quality raw material from which to obtain an excellent all-Apulian pasta. .
From this certainty began, about ten years ago, within the company in Corato (BA), a path through which we managed to aggregate various agricultural companies, pushing them to produce quality durum wheat in exchange for a guaranteed minimum price and incentives (bonuses) related to quality.
Initially we managed to involve a few operators in the Tavoliere, today our supply chain agreement brings together over 300 agricultural companies, 2 storage cooperatives, two mills, which together produce over 20.000 tons of high quality durum wheat, for a production of about 12.000 pasta. tons under the Granoro Dedicato brand.
All the players in our supply chain, from the small farmer to the pasta factory, feel they are the protagonists of an idea, of an enhancement project. Everyone sees in the finished product, the Dedicato pasta, the fruit of their work and not the product of their customer.
Each individual farmer, unlike other supply chains, feels an active part and does not passively suffer impositions from above. It follows, for example, that everyone is "free" to choose the varieties of durum wheat that best suit their area and to conduct their field in the best possible way, while respecting the defined regulations: quantity, quality, economic satisfaction and satisfaction of the pasta factory.
Our secret was sharing, participation.
Granoro Dedicato pasta has been officially on the shelves since 2012 and is defined to all intents and purposes as an authentic "short chain" product. In fact, all the operators of the supply chain, from farmers, to stockers up to the pasta factory itself, reside in the Apulian territory.
The Granoro “Dedicato” pasta is the first product to also boast the “Quality Products of Puglia” brand, established by the Puglia Region and which certifies and certifies that the supply chain is all Apulian. “Dedicato” is also the first pasta from the Apulian cereal chain certified Uni En ISO22005: 08.
Since its launch, this line has aroused the interest of Italian and foreign distribution operators. Today Dedicato ”is present in the best Italian large distribution chains from Esselunga to Eataly, which have recognized it as a true excellence of our territory, and in the best European gastronomies.
We don't intend to stop at pasta alone. Dedicato "is an ambitious project, it is a replicable model and its future goal is to extend to other Apulian supply chains and excellences, such as Coratina PDO extra virgin olive oil from Castel del Monte, tomatoes, legumes (lentils, chickpeas , cicerchia) of Altamura and the Alta Murgia Park.
The short supply chain is not the only model of virtuous agriculture undertaken by Granoro, the company is in fact among the first in the sector to produce BIO pasta, i.e. in times when no one believed in it. At the beginning of 2000 the farmers were skeptical and few of them seriously began a process of conversion to the organic farming method. Driven by the interest of an important Italian distribution chain, Granoro starts producing BIO pasta in four types of formats, making preferential agreements with specialized operators in the primary sector and with a small Molino del subappenino dauno, also specialized in the production of semolina. 100% Italian organic.
Today, or rather in the last three years, the fashion for BIO has broken out, and for Granoro, which has always believed in it (even before other European industrial giants), it was a real "turning point" in terms of product quality and turnover.
For this reason the proposed assortment is decidedly wide, from the production of classic BIO pasta, BIO WHOLEMEAL pasta with wheat germ, BIO CUORE MIO pasta, a pasta rich in soluble fiber, beta-glucans, which help reduce blood cholesterol, up to to the latest lines such as SENATORE CAPPELLI BIO wheat pasta and BIO SPELLED pasta.
Innovation and ecological choice also in packaging. All Granoro organic pulp packs are fully recyclable in paper with a 35% reduction in plastic consumption, for an annual production of 4 million recyclable packs in paper.
A "complete ecological product", as in addition to greater environmental sustainability in the production of durum wheat and packaging that reduces the negative impact on the environment as much as possible. The numbers of Bio for Granoro are record-breaking.
In the period of the Apulian drama due to the attack of the olive tree disease by Xylella, Granoro, its staff and all its supply chain represent a tangible example for farmers to trace a new Risorgimento for the whole of Puglia which makes excellence the own flag.
Article by Matteo Donelli
