Valdibella - l'ombelico del mondo?!

After more than five years at Crowd Container, during which I have been on board as a Customer Happiness employee, I visited our partner cooperative Valdibella in Camporeale, Sicily, for the first time in October 2024. The direct encounter with the people at Valdibella (those who actually work the land, harvest and process the fruit that we are then allowed to sell) once again gave me great confirmation and a lot of additional motivation for my daily work for the retail revolution.

On a "pleasure trip"

As a guide on our "pleasure trip", I and our guests gain an insight into the work of our partner cooperative Valdibella over several days. The aim is to strengthen the bridge between producers and consumers and to deepen understanding of the work in the fields. Of course, the three days are also characterized by Sicilian hospitality and richly laid out tavolatas full of Italian "soul food", prepared with the products of the cooperative.

We are welcomed in Palermo on Monday morning by Walter, the "jack of all trades" of Valdibella, who feels like he has many strings in his hand, knows everything, is a hub of communication and always gives his all during our visit to ensure that we guests have a pleasant stay and an exciting program. He is our tour guide for the first two days, tells us the history of the founding of Valdibella and shows us all the important places. Of course, there is also plenty of time for socializing, for example at our first lunch together at Casa Gialla, where we are staying and where Anna welcomes us with a lovingly prepared meal.

Visit to NoE in the Food Forest

Walter also accompanies us to Partinico for the Cooperativa Sociale NoE (No Emarginazione)where the project we co-initiated Food Forest is being realized. Here we meet Carla, the soul of NoE, and Rafael, an ecologist at the University of Palermo who is providing scientific support for the development of the agroforestry project. It is a very informative tour of the diverse site. Gaspare, a long-time employee of NoE, will provide musical accompaniment (classical music or old Italian canzoni) via a loudspeaker. Who knows, maybe the plants grow even better this way? The music certainly helps to get the work going. And no: the beautiful spiral on the ground is not an art project, as I suspected, but an experiment to mulch the soil with otherwise unusable sheep's wool, i.e. to protect and nourish it.

Harvesting and grinding olives

After a convivial lunch under the large mulberry tree - Italian, English, a little German and, of course, Swiss German are spoken at the table, using our hands and feet when necessary - it's time for us guests to get to work harvesting olives. I didn't realize how much this work has in common with brushing your hair every day: The olive tree is practically combed out...

Afterwards, Walter drives us to one of the two oil mills with which Valdibella cooperates: We are lucky that even the owner, Stefano Gallo, is on site. We ask lots of questions, marvel at the speed with which the "green gold" is extracted from the recently harvested olives and, of course, try a sip Olio Extra Vergine d'Oliva full of healthy, bitter polyphenols, which decrease the longer the oil is left to stand, perhaps making the olive oil more digestible for children's palates. A rich day full of impressions comes to an end.

Valdibella - Valley of beauty

On Wednesday morning, we have the honor of being personally welcomed by Massimiliano Solano, one of the founders of the cooperative. He drives us to his farm near Camporeale, which he inherited together with his siblings. Clover is currently being grown in the timilia fields: Alongside legumes (such as lentils and chickpeas), a second catch crop to supply the soil with nitrogen in a natural way. In addition to the frequently discussed topic of water scarcity, Massimiliano explains to us what measures the cooperative takes to prevent fires. We are very impressed by Valdibella's work - both in terms of its depth and the foresight with which the people here approach the matter. Finally, we even see the small, fertile "Valdibella", loosely translated as "Valley of Beauty", which lies just below Camporeale and gives its name to the cooperative.

Tavolata

Back at Casa Gialla, Anna has conjured up a wonderfully sumptuous tavolata for us; there are 16 of us at the long table, laughing and toasting. I sit next to Duncan, the recipe developer at Valdibella, and am delighted to hear that there is a prospect of a creation with eggplants. We learn that Memorii is not just a game of cards, but a very fine, sweet white wine, which is also traditionally made at Valdibella using the "perpetuum principle" in oak barrels: Every year, 1000 liters are taken from the 5000l barrel and bottled; 1000 liters of fresh wine are refilled. Memorii stop.

L'ombelico del mondo: organic and hearty

If I had to name two keywords for my visit to our friends in Sicily, these would be organic and savory. Organic not only the cultivation, but also the organization (always well-rounded, but also spontaneous, flexible and capable of responding to guests' wishes at short notice). Hearty. I don't need to write more about this than that: People and food.

Inwardly, I am accompanied on this journey by the Hit from Jovanotti and I wonder if Valdibella is perhaps the belly button of the world, so many people from different backgrounds meeting here for work and exchange: Sicily, Italy, Russia, Brazil, Kenya; visiting Switzerland (Appenzell and Emmental) and Thailand/China... Could then the Andalusian soils planted by Tierra y Libertad be the heart, the forest gardens of Kerala the soul, the fields in Switzerland the feet and the agroforestry gardens in Peru our roots? If this image of a networked organism does not apply to the world, perhaps it does to Crowd Container and all those who sail with us and are thus involved in realizing the vision of a sustainable food trade.