The entrepreneurial adventure begins
My name is Salvatore Malerba, owner of the Malerba company. Our company cultivates more than 50 hectares of fruit chestnut groves, all organic and IPG “Chestnut of Montella”.
It was born of an anecdote that happened to me personally, when I was young. The anecdote was this, that there were traders who came to buy the semi-finished chestnuts from my father and I wondered why we had to sell this semi-finished product when we could have turned it inside our company. And indeed the company was born just like that, starting to transform our semi-finished product because first the chestnuts were only harvested and dried, then sold to the merchants who made the transformed product. We have been transforming the product for more than 40-45 years. Today we are transforming the entire product, also buying chestnuts from Montella producers.
Our other big goal has been to bring our collaborators, from seasonal collaborators to collaborators as permanent employees. We had succeeded even in full, but unfortunately, the event “Cinipide”, in Italy, took place, which affected the whole chestnut sector for which it decimated the productions. We have responded to this problem with product diversification, because, having less product, we were able to transform that little bit of product that was there into other processed products, that is, the last born was chestnut beer, a chestnut liqueur cream, chestnut brandy, priest’s chestnuts, many products. In fact, we have led the company to resist this event of the “Cinipide”, which otherwise, being a company of production, of transformation, having no raw materials, we could have closed. But today we are on the market, we are fine and we have no problems.
The money to start
The important thing about our company, which I personally am the fifth generation. We are also registered in the historic register of the Italian Unioncamere. Our history dates back to 1862, our great-grandfather working on the construction of the Corinth canal, with the first proceeds he had bought the first chestnut grove in Montella and so the Malerba company was born. The economic resources were found in the family environment, as a first impact, then we had the good fortune to start immediately to provide large-scale distribution and within 2-3 years we planned, indeed, the whole economic organization of the company.
A negative and a positive event
The negative event for the Malerba company was this arrival of this Euro-Japanese-Chinese insect, more than anything else, in Piemonte that infested chestnut trees and decimated production. This “Cinipide Galligeno”, in fact, is a small fly that goes to create galls on the chestnut plant and has highly weakened the plants, drastically reducing production.
The positive, more positive event was that in a fair in Verona, for example, already in the first years of our company we took a Japanese customer, and we have been keeping it for 40 years.
Doing business in Italy
Well, a lot is said, talked, why doing business in Italy? Business in Italy is done because Italy is an exceptional country, it is an exceptional country, we, besides being in an exceptional country, find ourselves with products of a unique excellence and it is obvious that as well as other regions, our added value for Campania, for Montella, is the Montella chestnut, but without detracting from those who make excellent olive oil in other regions, wines of unique excellence, but many products that now perhaps I don’t remember. So, I say that Italy can afford any market situation, and will always win. This must be believed, if one believes in it, a business in Italy can be done, even if perhaps not helped much by politics, but it is enough to believe it because, in fact, the territory is there, the environment is there, the products are there and we can easily break through.
The key traits of an entrepreneur
The entrepreneur must be convinced of what he does, have the strength to fight, because surely despite what I said before, we find ourselves with very important excellences, unique in Italy, but nothing is taken for granted.
He must have stubbornness, tenacity, fight over problems because no problem is solved by itself. That is, politics must be given nice and clear indications, clean to make it clear that the problem is there and it is true. Because then it is not true that politics does not respond to the needs but we must know how to trust them, and this depends on us entrepreneurs, because if we believe in it and succeed in making people understand that there is a problem and it is true, politics, in my opinion, has a bit of an obligation, but I don’t think so much about the obligation, but also, in my opinion, morally responsible for solving certain problems for the territory.
The future for the new generations
A tip I want to give especially to young people is not to abandon your territories, not to abandon our territories. I saw a negative event in the municipality of Montella, where many young people left.
However, I say that agriculture can still give so much, there is so much to do and another thing I have to tell you is that it could be my last public interview, as far as the company is concerned, because I will leave the company to my children and I invite all those entrepreneurs who have the opportunity to take this step, to do it, to put young people at ease in a company and as long as it is time to even direct them and help them.
IP Crew
