From pizza king to olive king
From pizza king to olive king
After being the largest pizza maker in Switzerland, dieci founder Rocco Delli Colli has also become the biggest producer of organic olives in Italy.
The 62-year-old patron of the country’s largest pizza delivery company has expanded his “empire” to include an additional dimension - the largest organic olive oil production in Italy: “in the Maremma in Tuscany, there will soon be around 50,000 olive trees in an area of around 600 hectares. This means that not only will we be able to cover our own olive oil requirements for our companies in Switzerland in the future, but we can also export our precious olive oil,” says Delli Colli.
Biodiversity in nature
“Olio Delli Colli”. The project has an illustrious name. However, there is much more to it than showmanship; a financial fund founded by Delli Colli and friends. Delli Colli says: “nature is at the inception of every high-quality olive oil. Sustainability and ecology are the basis of everything we do.”
This starts with the biodiversity of the project: in addition to the olive trees, another 25,000 newly planted fruit and deciduous trees as well as shrubs, bushes and spices grow on the estate. These contribute to the diversity of the agricultural business. In addition, the company covers almost all its water requirements from its own reservoir. Delli Colli, who has handed over the operational management of the new branch of the company to his son Alessio, is not primarily looking to make money with olive oil: “our aim is to change something in the basic attitude when it comes to production, for the benefit of the next generations too.” And then he adds a sentence that is more or less a philosophical motivation for him: “We need nature! Nature doesn’t need us.” But he never points the finger at producers who do not work in the same way that he does. At the same time, it is not without pathos when he says: “I think in an organic way.”
A career that started with dishwashing
The patron continues with what is one of the most incredible stories of a company in Switzerland: the creation of his pizza empire reads like a rags-to-riches tale that Hollywood could not have written more beautifully. On 3 November 1990, he opened the Dieci Bar and Pizza on Kluggasse in Rapperswil’s old town, with twelve seats and a staff of five people. The range was neither new nor revolutionary, but “it went down a storm. People literally snatched the pizza out of our hands.”
Today, the company is by far the largest pizza courier in Switzerland, with a total of 52 sites and 800 full-time employees. The group also includes five gelaterias, four restaurants, a catering company, gelato production and merchandise trade. More than five million pizzas are produced every year. The dieci figures are generally impressive: The company processes 600 tons of mozzarella, 840 tons of Swiss flour and 450 tons of Pelati every year. 540 dieci vehicles deliver around 15,000 pizzas every day.
Father as a role model
But these figures are not his greatest success, says the father of two, who has been married to Bettina from Rapperswil for 33 years: “My major aim was for my father to be able to end his job as a seasonal worker and return to my mother. So, I gave them thirty years together.” In general, his father is his most important role model: “He served all his life. He never made much of a fuss. But he was always there when you needed him.”
Delli Colli is now at a point in his life where he is gradually passing on the management of his business to the next generation. At the same time, he wants to give something back to the people through organic olive cultivation in Italy: “we use only organic fertilisers,” he says – and adds: “for example, chicken manure. We bought chicken manure for EUR 300,000 to fertilise the plantations – others should take a leaf out of our book.” When it comes to pest control, Delli Colli also relies on natural products such as kaolin powder, to keep flies and caterpillars away.
Reducing CO2 with olive trees
Last but not least, the project is focused on CO2 reduction: “the olive tree is the fruit plant with the greatest CO2 binding potential,” explains Delli Colli - and calculates: “An olive tree absorbs 425 kg of CO2 in 20 years.”
Delli Colli is incorporating this idea into his company – and enabling the public to participate in it.
On his homepage (oliodellicolli.ch/Dein-Baumkauf/) you can become part of the idea by buying a tree, and you then receive your own olive oil in the autumn. Or to put it in the words of Rocco Delli Colli: “you are happy in the knowledge that food comes from truly sustainable production.”
Fun fact: art characterised by the olive
From May onwards, pictures of the organic olive plantation of dieci founder Rocco Delli Colli will give a very special ambience to most dieci branches.
Pay attention next time you visit...