Olio Roi - Crema di Olive

Olio Roi di Boeri Franco

We live in Badalucco, a small village (1400 inhabitants) in Argentina Valley, Liguria.

Our company is a family company and the Franco’s great grandfather start to work in 1900. Franco is the 4th generation and he is very proud to continue the tradition of the family and press the olive with a stone mill, like in the past. But he looks also to the future and in 2009 he decided to buy a modern mill so now we work in 2 different ways.

We have about 4000 olive trees on 10 hectares of the typical Ligurian terraces and we received an award for the Best Olives Groves for 4 years.

Roi is the nick name of the family, the surname is Boeri. In Badalucco lives a lot of Boeri and in Italy ,in the small village, people use nick name to know from which family you come. In 1980 when Franco start to sell the oil and the products, he decided to use Roi.

The Olio Roi is also a teaching farm and Rossella (Franco's wife) plays with children and explains everything about oil and the harvest of the olives. The children come in the mill and in the olives groves for a day .When they come back home they know more about the extra virgin olive oil and also about good food. They are not allowed to eat snacks for the day or to drink fizzy drinks and the breakfast is bread with fresh oil.

Our main products are extra virgin olive oil from Taggiasca olives ( we take the award 3 Olives from Slow Food for the last 7 years), olives in brine and pitted in oil, Pesto, olives cream, artichokes cream, dried tomatoes cream and other typical sauces.

We think we are very lucky to work with food because we have many opportunities to meet people and it's not only business but it's to share the love for good food and a way of life. We like to work with Jme because the philosophy of the company, I think, is the same as ours. Franco is also a Slow Food partner and Jme work with the same idea: to use high quality raw materials, to prepare simple recipes and to teach people how to use healthy food. Since last year to help young people ,returning to work in agriculture in the Argentina Valley, we organize a day in July to present them to the people and to the press .In 2011 we awarded a couple of cheese makers and now they have many new customers.

Rossella is a member of “Consorzio Valle Argentina” that promotes the village for tourism and the local productions.