Company type | Private (family-owned) |
---|---|
Industry | Food processing |
Founded | 1938 |
Founder | Giovanni and Felice Colavita |
Headquarters | , |
Area served | Italy, United States |
Key people | Enrico and Leonardo Colavita |
Products | Pasta, Olive Oil, Tomato Sauce, Soup, Vinegar, Wine [1] |
Website | colavita.it colavita.com |
Colavita is an Italian company best known for its olive oil.
As of 2010, the brothers Enrico and Leonardo Colavita run the company, with Enrico serving as President and Leonardo as General Manager, and other members of the family serving in other management roles, including Leonardo's son Giovanni, who was President of Colavita USA. [2] Their father started the packaging business in the 1930s; [1] their family, and many other families in the town of Sant'Elia a Pianisi and the wider Province of Campobasso, had grown and pressed olive oil for generations. [2] The company owns a packaging plant in Pomezia, which also packages olive oil under the brands Rachael Ray All-Italian Extra Virgin Olive Oil and Santa Sabina. [2]
Colavita USA was founded by John J. Profaci exclusively who, at the time, was a resident of Bensonhurst, Brooklyn. Profaci was introduced to Enrico Colavita in 1978 after Colavita came to the United States. Profaci, who had been in the olive oil business, agreed to go into business with Colavita as the US distributor for the company and subsequently created the extra virgin olive oil category in the United States. [3] The US distribution started slowly, with Profaci offering samples at a local grocery store, and then he started to sell to Italian restaurants and to specialty stores and within five years, Colavita became a renowned brand in parts of the world. [3] Then, in the mid-1980s, The New York Times ran a feature on the health benefits of foods with monounsaturated fat like olive oil, and the article included a picture of a bottle of Colavita olive oil. The publicity caused the business to grow quickly. [3]
In 1991 Colavita USA donated $2 million to the Culinary Institute of America in exchange for naming rights to a new building on the campus[ where? ]; the building opened in 2001 after the school spent $7 million total to complete it. [3]
In 2008 Colavita acquired Colavita USA. [4]
Olive oil is a liquid fat obtained by pressing whole olives, the fruit of Olea europaea, a traditional tree crop of the Mediterranean Basin, and extracting the oil.
Gulf Oil was a major global oil company in operation from 1901 to 1985. The eighth-largest American manufacturing company in 1941 and the ninth largest in 1979, Gulf Oil was one of the Seven Sisters oil companies. Prior to its merger with Standard Oil of California, Gulf was one of the chief instruments of the Mellon family fortune; both Gulf and Mellon Financial had their headquarters in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, with Gulf's headquarters, the Gulf Tower, being Pittsburgh's tallest building until the completion of the U.S. Steel Tower.
Esso is a trading name for ExxonMobil. Originally, the name was primarily used by its predecessor Standard Oil of New Jersey after the breakup of the original Standard Oil company in 1911. The company adopted the name "Esso", to which the other Standard Oil companies would later object.
The Colgate-Palmolive Company, commonly known as Colgate-Palmolive, is an American multinational consumer products company headquartered on Park Avenue in Midtown Manhattan, New York City. The company specializes in the production, distribution, and provision of household, health care, personal care, and veterinary products.
The Havana Conference of 1946 was a historic meeting of United States Mafia and Cosa Nostra leaders in Havana, Cuba. Supposedly arranged by Charles "Lucky" Luciano, the conference was held to discuss important mob policies, rules, and business interests. The Havana Conference was attended by delegations representing crime families throughout the United States. The conference was held during the week of December 22, 1946, at the Hotel Nacional. The Havana Conference is considered to have been the most important mob summit since the Atlantic City Conference of 1929. Decisions made in Havana resonated throughout US crime families during the ensuing decades.
Giuseppe "Joe" Profaci was an Italian-American Cosa Nostra boss who was the founder of what became the Colombo crime family of New York City. Established in 1928, this was the last of the Five Families to be organized. He was the family's boss for over three decades.
Carapelli is an Italian food company, currently owned by Deoleo, S.A, based in Tavarnelle Val di Pesa, which is a small town in the Metropolitan City of Florence, most famous for its extra virgin olive oil. The company was started as a home business in 1893 by Cesira and Costantino Carapelli. Other members of the Carapelli family joined the business and the company rapidly grew in size and popularity, to become the most modernised food company in Italy by the 1940s. Today, Carapelli Firenze SpA is the leading Italian extra virgin olive oil company where 30% of its production is exported to Europe and the Americas.
Krinos Foods, Inc. is a United States private company based in New York that imports and produces Greek and other Mediterranean foods. It is one of the largest Greek food importers in North America. The company headquarters are in the Long Island City section of Queens, but it has purchased a site to move to the Bathgate Industrial Park in the Tremont section of the Bronx. In addition to New York, the company has manufacturing facilities in Chicago, Toronto, and Montreal.
Bertolli is a brand of Italian food products produced by multiple companies around the world with the trademark owned by Mizkan Holdings. Originating as a brand of extra-virgin olive oil, in which it was the global market leader, pasta sauces and ready meals are now sold under the brand name as well.
Filippo Berio is a brand of olive oils exported from Italy and made of oil from Italy, Greece, Spain and Tunisia. The brand is used for virgin, extra-virgin and 'mild and light' oils, as well as wine vinegar, balsamic vinegar, pesto and olives.
Pompeian, Inc. is a food company that was founded in Baltimore in 1906 and produced America's first national brand of imported extra virgin olive oil. Today Pompeian offers a line of olive oils, including Robust Extra Virgin, Smooth Extra Virgin, Organic Extra Virgin, Classic Pure and Extra Light Tasting varieties. Pompeian has the number one selling extra virgin olive oil, olive oil, balsamic vinegar, wine vinegar and grapeseed oil, and offers a wide variety of cooking oils, vinegars, cooking wines and cooking sprays nationwide. Pompeian also carries several Organic products, including Organic Extra Virgin Olive Oil, Organic Balsamic Vinegar and Organic Red Wine Vinegar.
Olive oil regulation and adulteration are complex issues overseen and studied by various governmental bodies, non-governmental organizations, and private researchers across the world. The most frequent type of adulteration is that oil of lower quality is mixed into olive oil.
Ken's Foods is a privately held food manufacturing company located in Marlborough, Massachusetts. Ken's primary products are salad dressings, sauces, and marinades. The company's commercial food manufacturing divisions produce products both for retail sale and food service, including contract manufacturing for companies such as Newman's Own.
Sclafani Foods is an importer of Italian specialty foods which includes flagship products such as extra virgin olive oil, pasta, San Marzano tomatoes, and vinegar. Based out of Norwalk, Connecticut, the Gus Sclafani Corporation distributes their products across the United States, primarily in the Northeast.
Quaker State is an American brand of motor oils, owned by Shell USA, the US-based division of Shell plc.
Lambda is a Greek luxury olive oil brand, produced by Speiron company, founded in 2007 by Greek entrepreneur Giorgos Kolliopoulos. It is branded as the first luxury olive oil in the world. Its brand name originates from the Greek word λάδι (ladi) which means oil in Greek.
Rheem Manufacturing Company is an American privately held manufacturer that produces residential and commercial water heaters and boilers, as well as heating, ventilating and air conditioning (HVAC) equipment. The company also produces and sells products under the Ruud brand name. It is an independent subsidiary of Paloma Industries. What became Rheem started in 1925 as a supplier of packaging to the petroleum industry, and is currently headquartered in Atlanta, Georgia in the United States. The company is one of the largest manufacturers of both water heating and HVAC equipment in the United States, and also produces and markets products in Argentina, Armenia, Australia, Bahrain, China, Chile, Brazil, Canada, Iraq, Kuwait, Mexico, New Zealand, Perú, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Singapore, UAE, and Ukraine.
The International Olive Council (IOC) is an intergovernmental organization of states that produce olives or products derived from olives, such as olive oil.
Deoleo, S.A. is a Spanish multinational olive oil processing company. It is the world's largest bottler selling brands such as Bertolli, Carapelli, Carbonell, and Koipe. In India, it sells olive oil under brand name Figaro.