Il Girasole Soc. Coop.

The Girasole Soc. Coop. mainly deals with production and marketing of fruit and vegetables. At its birth, it counted 9 members, 40 acres, 10,000 tons, 20 seasonal workers. The product brought by the members is 50% absorbed by the market and 50% by the processing industry. The warehouse was about 400 square meters large, it did not have the refrigerating cabin and the processing line allowed the sorting and grading of the product, which once finished, could be presented only in traditional packaging. Since 2002 there has been an evolution in both the number of members and the total area and the production one, which gave the possibility to cover all stages of the citrus marketing, from late October to late May.

All the associated companies are followed at all stages of the production process by a team of agronomists who, besides following and complying with the product specification of cultivation, pay great attention to consumer health, as the end user of the agro-food chain, through the use of specific products and abiding by methods able to safeguard and protect the environment. The seasonal employees staff distributed into the various stages, from harvesting to storage, processing and gathering is about 100 units, and if we consider the induction, between packaging suppliers, transport workers and so on, it could add other 40 units. It should be stressed that the staff is technically expert to manage the various stages of processing with competence and professionalism, as well as to carefully follow the HACCP system.