Oleificio Zucchi was founded in 1810 in the area near Lodi in northern Italy as a family business that produced seed oils for human consumption.
1922 saw the introduction of the refining process and in the late 1950s we made our entry into the mass market for food products, with both seed and olive oils.
In the 1990s, our constant growth made it necessary to move the business to its current 86,000-square-foot-facility on the Cremona navigation canal, with a production capacity that has risen to almost 400,000 gallons/day of packaged oil, nine highly automated lines, state-of-the-art technology and a wide distribution in the retail chain and Ho.Re.Ca. channels and within the food processing industry. Alongside all this, the last few years have seen the development of a Research and Development laboratory with an in-house team of skilled blendmasters who carry out rigorous panel tests and create original blends. This highly-qualified team focuses on extra virgin olive oils, combining technical expertise and talent to achieve unique results of unrivaled excellence through continual experimentation with new combinations of flavors. The art of blending is the ability to create an oil with a specific personality by combining oils from different cultivars and origins for an end result that is greater than the sum of its parts and suits various consumer tastes.
In order to deliver an excellent oil whose quality remains constant overtime and organoleptic properties rest intact, we have created an “OIL CELLAR”, Italy’s largest temperature-controlled storage facility (maintained at a constant 60°F), capable of storing about 5300 tons of extra virgin olive oil.
We have an established policy of continual investments, updating our plant in line with the latest technical and engineering concepts for ever-improving environmental and economic sustainability.
This continual quest for the highest sustainable quality has been rewarded by the many process and product certifications achieved over the years. We continuously initiate projects intended to add value to every link in the production chain, and boost the vitality of the entire Italian edible oil industry.
Social Accountability Certification: SA8000
At the beginning of 2011 was achieved SA8000 certification on Corporate Social Responsibility. It’s a voluntary international standard that aims to improve workers’ conditions and demanded the following requirements:
- complete absence of any form of child labor in the company;
- complete absence of forced labor;
- that safety and health are the heart of the business to ensure a safe and healthy workplace to the workers and anyone who might be involved in business;
- respect for freedom of association and the right to collective bargaining;
- equal opportunities to all people who work in the company, to prevent all forms of discrimination;
- the application of disciplinary procedures take place as expected CCNL, respecting the integrity of the worker;
- that working hours and wages are consistent with industry standards and the CCNL.
Certified Quality
The constant quest for improvement along the whole production line sees to it that the company operates in conditions for maximum guarantee of product quality. Such efforts have met with due recognition in the certification of the quality management system in conformity with the requisites of the norm UNI EN ISO 9001:00 certified CSQA n.002 obtained in 1993 (certification of the management system for quality in the sector of refining, processing and packaging of alimentary and industrial vegetable oils) which places the client at the centre of the realisation of a management system and his full satisfaction as to the guarantee of quality and safety of the food products. The year 2000 saw the addition of the certification of the environmental management system in conformity with UNI EN ISO 14001:04 certified CSQA n.426, which promoted a preventive approach to environmental risks and conformity with the enforceable norms/regulations.
In 2003 Oleificio Zucchi also obtained certification for products in conformity with the DTP 030 standard relative to corn oil and soybean oil not containing and not deriving from Genetically Modified Organisms (GMO). In particular the certification is especially restrictive because it provides for a maximum of 0.1% GMO through accidental cross contamination (compared to an accepted average value of maximum 0.9% GMO).
During the course of 2005 the strict certifications BRC and IFS were obtained, required by the main European retailers to guarantee products with the GDO label. The BRC certification is a model recognised in the United Kingdom (British Retail Consortium) while with IFS certification (International Food Standard)) it’s the same certification for Central European nations (Austria, Switzerland, France and Germany). Both refer to the HACCP method, requiring adoption of the method within the company, to ensure management of the hygiene-health quality of a product. All this to meet and surpass the demands of clients who for 2 centuries now have found the quality of Oleificio Zucchi on their tables.
Safety
Oleificio Zucchi puts health and safety of its employees among its primary objectives. In addition to the company’s commitment to consider all the Italian rules about health and safety, numerous are the initiatives and the update staff training about these issues.
This attention to health and safety of employees has been recognized in 2012, with the BS OHSAS 18001 certification, the standard that lays down requirement for a System of Management of Health and Work Safety, to allow an Organisation to check its risks as for health and work safety and to improve its performance.
