Bertolli is a brand of

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products produced by multiple companies around the world with the trademark owned by Mizkan Holdings. Originating as a brand of

extra-virgin olive oil Olive oil is a liquid fat obtained from olives (the fruit of ''Olea europaea''; family Oleaceae), a traditional tree crop of the Mediterranean Basin, produced by pressing whole olives and extracting the oil. It is commonly used in cooking: f ...

, in which it was the global market leader,

pasta Pasta (, ; ) is a type of food typically made from an unleavened dough of wheat flour mixed with water or eggs, and formed into sheets or other shapes, then cooked by boiling or baking. Rice flour, or legumes such as beans or lentils, ar ...

sauce In cooking, a sauce is a liquid, cream, or semi-solid food, served on or used in preparing other foods. Most sauces are not normally consumed by themselves; they add flavor, moisture, and visual appeal to a dish. ''Sauce'' is a French wor ...

s and

ready meal A frozen meal (also called TV dinner (Canada and US), prepackaged meal, ready-made meal, ready meal (UK), frozen dinner, and microwave meal) is a packaged frozen meal that comes portioned for an individual. A frozen meal in the United States an ...

s are now sold under the brand name as well.

History

In , the Bertolli company was founded by Francesco Bertolli and his wife, Caterina, in

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. They began by selling produce such as wine, cheese, olives, and olive oil. The company was managed by Bertolli family until 1972, when the company was acquired by Alimont (part of Montedison Group). Alimont was later changed its name to Alivar then taken over by Società Meridionale di Elettricità (SME), an Italian state-owned conglomerate. SME later reorganised Bertolli and other food brands into Cirio Bertolli De Rica. In 1994,

Unilever Unilever plc is a British multinational consumer goods company with headquarters in London, England. Unilever products include food, condiments, bottled water, baby food, soft drink, ice cream, instant coffee, cleaning agents, energy dri ...

acquired Bertolli from Fisvi, a financial company that previously acquired Cirio Bertolli De Rica during breakup of SME. In 2008, Unilever sold the olive oil business to Grupo SOS (currently Grupo Deoleo),

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’s second-largest food group, for £500m as part of its disposal of non-core businesses. The transaction included the sale of the Italian Maya, Dante, and San Giorgio olive oil and seed oil businesses, as well as the factory at

Inveruno Inveruno ( lmo, Inverun or ''Invrugn'' is a ''comune'' (municipality) in the Metropolitan City of Milan in the Italian region Lombardy, located about west of Milan. Inveruno borders the following municipalities: Buscate, Busto Garolfo, Ar ...

, Province of Milan, Lombardy. In August 2012, the frozen foods business under the Bertolli brand name was sold by Unilever to ConAgra Foods. On 22 May 2014, Unilever agreed to sell its North American pasta sauce business under the Ragú and Bertolli brands to Mizkan Holdings for US$2.15 billion, As part of the deal, Mizkan obtained the Bertolli brand and trademark and licensed them to ConAgra, Deoleo, and Unilever at that time. In 2018, with the spin-off of Unilever's spread business as Upfield, Bertolli spread business and licence are now managed by that company. In 2021, Unilever divested its European pasta sauce and mayonnaise business under Bertolli brand and licence to Enrico-Glasbest, a Dutch food manufacturer.

Products

The frozen meals sold by Bertolli are branded under "Meals for One", "Meals for Two" and "Dessert" categories. Sales fell in the 2014 year for the frozen foods brands. ConAgra also focused in 2015 on growth in private-label products that retailers sell under their own brand. Bertolli's market share in pasta sauce in 2015 was 7.2% behind Ragú and Prego.

Lawsuit

Some controversy emerged in 2010 when Bertolli Extra Virgin Olive Oil was identified as one of the olive oils mislabeled as extra virgin in a study by

University of California, Davis The University of California, Davis (UC Davis, UCD, or Davis) is a public land-grant research university near Davis, California. Named a Public Ivy, it is the northernmost of the ten campuses of the University of California system. The inst ...

. In 2018, parent company Deoleo agreed to pay a US$7 million settlement to resolve a class action lawsuit which had alleged that the company had misrepresented Bertolli olive oil, and committed to undertake several actions to correct such misrepresentation. The suit had alleged that it was misleading for Bertolli to advertise its olive oil as being "Imported from Italy" when the oils actually came from olives grown and pressed in Greece, Chile, Spain, Australia, Turkey, and Tunisia, and had merely been mixed and bottled in Italy. Deoleo removed the phrase "Imported from Italy" from its products and committed not to use similar phrasing in the future unless the oil is derived entirely from olives grown and pressed in Italy. Additionally, the suit alleged that the clear bottles used by Bertolli for its oil were inadequate to protect them from sunlight and temperature extremes, such that the olive oil would not meet the "extra virgin" quality standard by the time it reached consumers. As part of this settlement, Deoleo implemented several new practices to help ensure that its oil would meet the "extra virgin" standard at the time of sale and use: *using dark green bottles to protect its extra virgin olive oil from photooxidation *implementing stricter testing protocols *disclosing the date on which the olives used to make the oil were harvested on the bottle *shortening “best by” period indicated on the bottle On 15 November 2018 parent company Deoleo was granted an injunction against Natural Solutions Magazine, preventing the magazine from continuing false and misleading statements against Bertolli and one of Deoleo's other brands Carapelli.

Notes

References

External links