a little History
Since 1963, a meeting of the local culture and economy
In the peaceful and relaxing countryside of San Possidonio, in the Modena lowlands, with the aim of partially addressing the employment problems in the area and seeking to meet the expectations of the farming world as regards new markets for its fruit and vegetable produce, back in 1963 a far-sighted farmer and native of San Possidonio decided to bring together local farmers to provide a structure to the fruit and vegetable farming industry and guarantee the more streamlined and rapid marketing of their produce.
Thanks to the subsequent participation or membership of various fruit and vegetable producers in the municipality of San Possidonio and surrounding municipalities, Cesarino Bellini was able to create CIPOF, an inter-municipal cooperative for fruit and vegetable products.
The newly-elected chairman Bellini personally saw to the construction of the site, equipping it with special refrigerating rooms with a capacity of around 3.8 million kg to meet the production needs of the partners, which numbered 42 at that time. In 1975 his son Carlo Bellini, also appointed to manage the site, took over the company reins from his father and continued to propel CIPOF forward with the same passion. Right from the off the Cooperative deservedly enjoyed concrete success, making a name for itself thanks to its levels of quality but also from a production and commercial point of view, as testified by the increasing number of applications it received to join the organisation.
CIPOF in numbers
The figures of success
CIPOF is currently specialised in preserving pears whose fine qualities have made San Possidonio one of the best known areas in Italy for various varieties, such as: Williams, Kaiser, Conference, Decana del Comizio and especially Abate Fetel. Despite being tricky to preserve, the latter is one of the most popular on the market and the most marketed pear by the Cooperative with annual production of around 4/5 million kg out of an entire partner production volume of 8/9 million kg, distributed across a total production area of around 340 hectares of farmland.
All partners have set aside larger areas for orchards on their farms and these have risen to over 75, mainly distributed in the municipalities of San Possidonio, Concordia sulla Secchia, Cavezzo and Mirandola; they are able to call on personnel dedicated to the collection, sorting and storage of the pears, as well as CIPOF technical staff who oversee cultivation in the countryside, monitor the natural ripening of the fruit and, depending on the texture and level of sweetness, decide when to pick them. Having been suitably sorted, the pears picked and delivered to partners are generally stored in the refrigerating rooms at a controlled temperature and/or atmosphere making it possible, without the use of preservatives, to schedule their delayed natural maturation to ensure they hit the market at the right time.
CIPOF has obtained various certificates for its supply chain and organisational process and its refrigeration-preserving processes, such as UNI EN ISO 9001:2000 CSQA, Global GAP, B.R.C., Q.C. and I.ES.; in addition, for the goodness of its products, in its management system it encourages its producer partners to grow their fruit according to the Integrated pest management system.
