It is a satiating, pleasant, and healthy course; it can be tasted as main course, seasoning for salads, or mixed with rice or pasta. It is an excellent source of Omega 3, proteins, potassium, selenium, and vitamin B12; a perfect food for people who want to maintain a target weight without losing energy and taste. We are talking about canned tuna. In oil or natural? It is just a matter of taste and calories. Production, sales, and consumption are certainly increasing.
A journey into a gastronomic sea tradition - which evokes in the memory, by means of taste and flavours, legends concerning fishermen and rais, into the old tunny-fishing nets - allows meeting the tuna produced by ‘Giacinto Callipo Conserve Alimentari’. This is the first company in Calabria and one of the first ones in Italy to pack the valuable Mediterranean tuna caught with the system of fixed traps, a fishing system imported by the Arabs in the year Thousand on the coasts of Calabria, consisting in a complex barrage of nets immersed in the sea, for trapping the tunas during their passing along the route of their genetic migration, in spring and summer.
Thanks to its favourable climatic conditions, the Gulf of Sant’Eufemia Lamezia has been the ideal environment for reproduction of Thunnus thynnus tuna (red tuna), and on the coasts of Calabria, since ancient times, there was the greatest concentration of high production tunny-fishing nets, the most important and one of the oldest, the one of Pizzo, the so called ‘La Grande’, created in 1457.
The Italian Sea Tradition
The company Callipo, since 1913, has been able to acquire this ancient art and, with dedication, passion, far-sightedness, stood out on both Italian and international markets, marketing its tuna in Italy, Canada, Libya, Austria, USA, Australia, Russia, Israel, United Kingdom, France, Germany, Lithuania, and Switzerland.
A real plus and strength of the company is the process which, starting from whole tuna, is entirely carried out in Italy, in the plant of Maierato (VV), because, as Giacinto Callipo, the fifth generation of this historic company, says: «We have made the specific choice of avoiding outsourcing, because our company has always been especially careful to ensure the quality of its 100% Made in Italy products and enhance traditional flavours».
The annual production of this company is of about 5,500 tons, its daily production capacity of 300,000 boxes and 35,000 glass jars, with 4 brands: Callipo, Mister Ton, Mister Tonnello, and Rosa dei Venti, and a wide range of products: natural tuna fillets, in oil and extra virgin olive oil, organic, too, ‘Callipo’ and ‘Riserva Olio’ in glass jar; ‘Rustiche di Tonno’, the line in olive oil, in glass jar, which includes 5 references, such as tuna fillets with 'nduja of Calabria, with IGP red onion, with pesto of Liguria, with dried tomatoes and artichoke hearts; ‘Capricci di Tonno’, line of specialties with tuna and seasoned vegetables; ‘ventresca’ and tuna ‘bottarga’.
A valuable Tuna as for packaging, too
Packaging has always played a crucial role in business strategy, with glass as main character, alongside with the classic production in cans, «for enhancing from a visual viewpoint the quality of our product and helping to rediscover the true taste of Italian tuna. As a matter of fact, consumers are more and more aware of the importance of genuineness of the food they eat and, therefore, they pay a more careful attention to packaging, too», explains the owner.For its centenary, in 2013, the company decided to revise both logo and look of labels and products, according to the slogan ‘traditional quality gets a new look’. The new logo, refined, elegant, modern, with a darker tone of red, shape of a more linear canoe, entrusts its reference to tradition to a sailing ship and to the tag-line ‘sea stories’ of its label.
