That's why our crushing systemis different from all the others
Officine Meccaniche Toscane has been in the design and manufactureof systems for the production of olive oil from olive for over 80 years. An all-Italian company focused on the challenges of olive oil quality and sustainability.
Operating in the olive oil sector for over 80 years, Officine Meccaniche Toscane (OMT) is one of the historic companies of this industry. Attention to extra-virgin olive oil market trends and to production demands has always distinguish the company's innovation journey. Thanks to the continuous improvement of its machinery, it offers quality-oriented olive growers and millers technologically advanced system solutions. Giacomo Cappugi, Sales Office Manager, spoke about the latest news and innovation strategies of the florentine company. Giacomo Cappugi, sales office manager.
Recent and current trends in the olive oil sector have led to an acceleration in innovation and technologies applied to olive processing. How has your company met the new market demands?
«The olive oil machinery industry is certainly experiencing a boom in terms of innovation and research, riding the wave of the boost toward the highest quality of extra-virgin olive oil. At OMT we have been felt this boost for a long time; more than 20 years ago, this led us to introduce the first centrifugal extractors eliminating the need of the final separator, having the improve of quality as the primary goal. This was an important first step, followed by the development of other new decanters. The latest is the Euro 2.0 Evo TBD decanter, where the acronym stands for Twin Bowl Decanter. It's a two-phases decanter with a double drum: it always works at full drum. This technology meets the dual objective of obtaining a high extraction yield and a high organoleptic quality of the product.
In recent years other innovations were introduced on market by olive oil processing plant manufacturers, driven by climate changes and the gradual anticipation of harvesting. This required the design of new solutions to preserve the organoleptic and aromatic features of olive oils, since the volatile profile is altered by the rising of temperatures. OMT has worked on these aspects; for what concern the crushing, we are one of the few companies that even 50 years ago proposed a knife-based crushing system. This system has now become popular among competitors, and we, ourselves never abandoned it; in recent years, we tried and succeed to improve it.
For istance, our largest crusher, with a processing capacity of 4 tons per hour, has a completely different operating system from other vertical-knife crushers. The rotation axis is vertical and the crushing elements rotates horizontally: the olives are forced vertically into the crushing chamber from above. This ensures a mechanical crushing where rotation speed, which typically causes an increase in mechanical stress and in temperature, remains under control. In fact, the horizontal grid has a greater capacity of draining the olive paste with respect to the vertical grid, which requires cleaners and scrapers to ensure a proper drainage.
Alongside this structural feature of the crusher, we have introduced the option of adding inert components inside the crushing chamber to reduce oxidation processes and temperature control systems for the output paste. We received very positive feedback from customers who adopted these technologies».
How does the development of a new machine or the introduction of new components and functions actually take place?
"I'd prefer to talk about improvements rather than the development of a complete new machine: projecting, building, and testing a new machine is a long and complicated process, as well as a quite rare process in our industry. Just consider the very limited time available to evaluate changes and new technologies, which is limited to the harvest and pressing season.
Our company is very close to its customers; therefore the main motivation in improving our machines comes from our customers. We grant their requests, designing and testing gradual modifications to our systems. When we believe these improvements are significant, we evaluate them and introduce them permanently into our range.
We conduct an initial mechanical evaluation of the modified components and machines through in-house tests, supported by the technical office. Then we proceed with an operational test directly in the mill. To do this, we rely on one or more highly experienced olive processing companies, who can provide us with an evaluation of the changes we introduced; then we try to correct any defect that may emerge from the use of the machine in a real contest. Finally, in particular when we make relevant changes to the system, we test it with customers in different regions, so with different olives cultivars.
In your opinion, what future objectives is the olive oil machinery sector heading towards?
«If I had to define a winning machine for the near future, it would simply be the one that allows the miller, who is becoming a more and more specialized operator, to use it in many different ways. Consequently, I believe that the strategy we should strive for, not without difficulty, in our sector, is to innovate machines so that they can adapt more easily to the product they are processing.
With this in mind, at OMT, we began introducing software support in our installations, both for control and management, to simplify the machines use and to introduce a traceability system. It's an important knowledge tool for the user, who have access to a historical record of operations, can compare this informations with the results obtained (in terms of organoleptic quality and aromatic profile) and can develop the ability to make the best use of the system to obtain the product that best satisfies his customers and to diversify the production.
In addition to the technological support to change certain process variables (temperature, processing times....), a greater system flexibility is needed: OMT is working on this feature. The ideal crusher have to be able to operate with different grid, with different numbers of crushing elements, at different speeds for both feed and rotation and to be temperature-controlled.
The same thing applies to other machines; for example on market they gave decanters the option of working at a variable rotation speed. Our company offers this type of solutions too, but at the moment we have chosen to mantain the possibility of processing at two different speeds that are fixed and preset. The risk of too much freedom to manipulate the speed is to exit from the optimal working parameters of the machine which, in the end, results in a loss in yield. And, even if a good decanter must work at acceptable temperatures compatible with the desired quality, it has to ensure the best extractive yield; it can do so if it works in the range of rotation regimes for which it was built».
What are your target customers? How do you manage the relationship with the customer and the support service?
«For the systems with a hourly production of 250, 500 and 1000 kgs., our market is that of small farms, even if the system of 1000 kgs/h can turn to the small company who works for third parties.
For the bigger olive oil mill who works for third parties, we have a range of machines with a hourly capacity of 1500, 2000 up to 3000 kgs.These machines are intended for medium-sized olive oil mill, which are very common in Italy, or for medium-sized olive oil companies abroad; our target customers are not the industrial mills who process olives without worrying about final quality of the product.
For what concern the small olive oil mills, we very often train the miller from scratch, especially for those customers who purchase their first installation and who have never directly faced the olive oil processing. We are aware that teaching the use of the mill is a relevant aspect of our customer service. Our technicians, who usually handle the assembly and testing of the mills, have a mechanical training, but they have acquired more than twenty years of experience in olive processing and can contribute to customer training for what concern the quality of the the final product. We guarantee assistance to all our customers, both in Italy and abroad. For abroad we experimented the “distance” testing, using videoconferencing platforms and I have to say that in the end technology simplifies and helps a lot, at least when you can't move».
Sustainability and circular economy: familiar concepts even in olive oil processing, in particular for what concern wastewater management. What's OMT approach?
«For what concern the by-product management, we manufacture the "olive stone" machine, which separates the pulp and the peel to recover the olive stone. it is a complement to a the two-phase system, which is the most common in our production. With this setup, the customer can manage all the production waste, recovering with the olive stones what was previously the income from husk. The residue is generally collected, almost free of charge, by biogas production plants. Fom the customer's perspective there has been a marked improvement compared to 15-20 years ago, when the husk was almost never paid for and the mill was burdened by the costs of disposing of wastewater.
The two-phase mill isn't an absolute standard, however. We can provide our customers with a three-phase system, if requested. For istance, some of our customers have both a two- and a three-phase decanters; there are cases in which the three-phase decanter works better or has a result that the customer perceives as better or more in line with their production goal.
One of the aspect on which I think will be important to invest in the next future is the filtration phase. Current systems aren't wrong, but in terms of economic and environmental sustainability, the cost of filter disposal should be assessed. I think there's good room for improvement the sustainability, as well as the functionality, of the filtration process».
What are Officine Meccaniche Toscane's goals for the future?
"In terms of size, we are one of the medium-sized companies in the sector, but also one of the more established; we have been in the olive oil sector for over 80 years. Our goal is undoubtedly to continue in improving our systems, to continue in satisfying and strengthening our customers. Satisfied customers are the best advertisement, so continuing to do well means expanding our market. We don't set growth goals for their own sake from a commercial perspective; our current production scale satisfies us and allows us to work with the customer focus and with the quality of our systems, which are the main goals we have set ourselves.»
