Colavita is an Italian company best known for its

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: ...

. As of 2010, the brothers Enrico and Leonardo Colavita run the company, with Enrico serving as

President President most commonly refers to: *President (corporate title) * President (education), a leader of a college or university *President (government title) President may also refer to: Automobiles * Nissan President, a 1966–2010 Japanese f ...

and Leonardo as

General Manager A general manager (GM) is an executive who has overall responsibility for managing both the revenue and cost elements of a company's income statement, known as profit & loss (P&L) responsibility. A general manager usually oversees most or all ...

, and other members of the family serving in other management roles, including Leonardo's son Giovanni, who was President of Colavita USA. Their father started the packaging business in the 1930s; their family, and many other families in the town of Sant'Elia a Pianisi and the wider

Province of Campobasso A province is almost always an administrative division within a country or state. The term derives from the ancient Roman '' provincia'', which was the major territorial and administrative unit of the Roman Empire's territorial possessions outs ...

, had grown and pressed olive oil for generations. The company owns a packaging plant in

Pomezia Pomezia () is a municipality (''comune'') in the Metropolitan City of Rome Capital, Lazio, central Italy. In 2009 it had a population of about 60,000. History The town was built entirely new near the location of ancient Lavinium on land resultin ...

, which also packages olive oil under the brands Rachael Ray All-Italian Extra Virgin Olive Oil and Santa Sabina. Givoanni colavita spiega

Colavita USA was founded by John J. Profaci exclusively who, at the time, was a resident of

Bensonhurst, Brooklyn Bensonhurst is a residential neighborhood in the southwestern section of the New York City borough of Brooklyn. The neighborhood is bordered on the northwest by 14th Avenue, on the northeast by 60th Street, on the southeast by Avenue P and 22n ...

. 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 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 ...

category in the United States. 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. Then, in the mid-1980s, ''

The New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid ...

'' ran a feature on the health benefits of foods with

monounsaturated fat Monounsaturated fats are fatty acids that have one double bond in the fatty acid chain with all of the remainder carbon atoms being single-bonded. By contrast, polyunsaturated fats have more than one double bond. Molecular description Fatty acid ...

like olive oil, and the article included a picture of a bottle of Colavita olive oil. The publicity caused the business to grow quickly. In 1991 Colavita USA donated $2 million to the

Culinary Institute of America Culinary arts are the cuisine arts of food preparation, cooking and presentation of food, usually in the form of meals. People working in this field – especially in establishments such as restaurants – are commonly called chefs ...

in exchange for

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to a new building on the campus; the building opened in 2001 after the school spent $7 million total to complete it. In 2008 Colavita acquired Colavita USA.

References

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External links

Colavita ItalyColavita United StatesColavita India
Food and drink companies of Italy Food and drink companies of the United States Multinational food companies Olive oil

See also

References

External links