Buy from the producer, at the producer’s price.
Oil, cured meats, cheeses, vegetables in oil, pasta, preserves and honey, from Italian producers and no one else. Each one sells only what they can produce: when it runs out, it runs out.
Photo by Aron Marinelli on Unsplash
Behind every batch there is a person, and you get to see them.
Every product page says who grew it, in which town and in which month. The producers’ pages will also carry their own photos and videos: the field, the harvest, the work.
The catalogue opens with the November harvest. Are you a producer and want to be here? info@orterra.it
The batch diary
One stage, one month: from the field to the bottle. With the first batches, the producers’ own photos and videos will appear here.
The diary of: Oil
The olive grove
The harvest
The mill
The bottle
The harvest almanac
Everything has its month. Here you can see when the work happens in the field and when the new harvest reaches your home.
| J | F | M | A | M | J | J | A | S | O | N | D | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Oilalready on sale | Reaches your home | In the field | Reaches your home | Reaches your home | ||||||||
| Cured meats | In the field | In the field | Reaches your home | Reaches your home | ||||||||
| Cheeses | In the field | In the field | In the field | Reaches your home | Reaches your home | Reaches your home | ||||||
| Vegetables in oil | In the field | In the field | Reaches your home | In the field | In the field | In the field | Reaches your home | |||||
| Pasta | In the field | In the field | Reaches your home | Reaches your home | ||||||||
| Preserves | In the field | Reaches your home | Reaches your home | Reaches your home | ||||||||
| Honey | In the field | Reaches your home | Reaches your home | Reaches your home | Reaches your home | Reaches your home |
- In the field
- Reaches your home
Approximate months for all of Italy: they change with the region and the year. The real month is stated on every batch, and what has yet to arrive can be bought on pre-order, with the delivery date on the product page.
The full calendar, with sources
Photos by Tom Tvr, Silke Liebig-Braunholz, Alessandro Carrarini, Andreas Weilguny, Joana Abreu, Xavier von Erlach, Roberta Sorge, Alexandr Podvalny, Tadeu Jnr, Zoe Richardson, Mircea Sanauceanu, Vitaly Gariev, Danika Perkinson, Sarah Penney, Amy Vann, Filipe Cantador, Marshalok Brend, Pauline Bernard, Nina Luong, Christian Lue, Ray Shrewsberry, Jez Timms, Robert Wiedemann, Chris J Walker, Anima Visual, Chris Weiher, Luna Wang, stephan de MARANTHI, Anshu A on Unsplash.
Four things, and they can all be checked
No middleman
You buy from the producer. Orterra takes its commission and nothing else: it does not buy, does not resell, does not set the price.
Only what exists is for sale
Every lot has a declared and verified quantity. When it runs out, it runs out: you cannot order what has not been harvested.
You know where it comes from
The field, the municipality, the month of harvest, the lot. And for every lot, the page that shows how hectares, trees and litres add up.
The unit price is always written
Per litre, per kilo or per item, next to the price, on every page. You compare, without a calculator.
The shelf
Only products that travel at room temperature. Olive oil is on sale today: the other categories arrive as the buying office verifies the producers.
This is not a supply-chain product
The two routes side by side, category by category. On the left, how what you buy usually reaches you; on the right, how it arrives here.
How an oil reaches the shelf
A supermarket extra virgin is almost always a blend of oils from several countries, bottled by a company that grows nothing.
- The grower sells the olivesat the going price, without knowing where they will end up
- The industrial millmills batches of different origins, foreign ones included
- The bottlerblends, bottles and puts its own brand on it
- The distributormoves it to a warehouse and supplies the stores
- The chainputs it on the shelf and sets the price
- Youyou read “blend of oils from different countries” and know nothing else
Four marginsbefore it reaches you, and each one takes its cut.
How this one arrives
His own olive trees, picked by hand, milled within the hours he declares. One cultivar, no blending.
- His own trees, picked by handthe grove is the one you see on the map
- Milled within the hours he declaresat his own mill or the one he names
- No blending with other oilsone cultivar, one harvest, one single lot
- Youyou know the cultivar, the town, the month of the harvest and the lot
One margin onlythe one Orterra keeps, normally 12%. Everything else is the producer’s.
You buy in three steps
Choose
From the producer you want, with the quantity that actually exists. If it is a harvest still to come, you know the delivery month from the start.
The producer packs and ships
He packs it within the days he declared and hands it to the carrier. It goes through no warehouse.
Receive
You follow the parcel from your order page. You have fourteen days to change your mind, except for the products the law excludes.
How we choose producers and what we check is written in how we order the products. Why we accept only Italian companies, and how we prove it, is in why only Italy.