FAMILY HISTORY

Looking back over five generations of olive oil making, Rocco Tigani commenced in 1869 in the township of San Eufemia, Calabria, using a water wheel to drive stone crushers. The family have olive oil plantations in San Procopico, and the famous Goia Tauro plains.

In 1936, son Giuseppe and grandsons Rocco and Francesco transferred the oil processing to Sinopoli, Calabria using a motorised stone crushers and hand presses.

In 1972, granddaughter Nina introduced a modern method of processing using defoliation, washing, hammer crushing, temperature control mechanisms, separation decanters and final separators. They always took into consideration low temperature storage to maintain the quality of oil. Updating the processing line and blending and processing, great grandson Carmine still operates using the press in the family’s traditional way.

In 1950 after the Second World War, Grandson Francesco migrated to Australia.

In 1972, Great Grandson Tommaso commenced visiting Italy on an annual basis keeping in touch with the family olive oil business. Since then he has travelled the world annually investigating all aspects of the olive oil industry, taking into consideration quality, taste, climate, markets, variety, storage, blending and harvesting.

In 1983 Tommaso bought the family farm near Pinnaroo, which was well suited for olive groves because of its Mediterranean climatic conditions — and submersible water which originates from the Grampians.

In 1999 we began our first plantation, and today own and manage 170,000 trees in the Riverland and Fleurieu region.

In 2002 great, great grandsons Francesco and Emilio joined the family business and were in charge of farming operations and Emilio in charge of processing and blending. Emilio works under the supervision of the company agronomist and panellist Domenico Galiulo, who has 30 years experience in agronomy and is a well-recognised European panellist of 20 years, winning awards Cibus and Vinitaly.

Great, great grandsons Giancarlo and Marco also joined the company in 2004 and 2005 respectively, assisting in farm operations and harvesting.