The apples of Valtellina

We’re at the Valtellina’s largest fruit-growing cooperative, Melavì.

Here you can taste the famous apples of Valtellina, a PGI product. The apple tree fields are huge, 700 hectares!

There are a lot of bees, working very hard all day long to pollinate the apple blossoms…

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Video full text: The apples of the Valtellina

Apple trees in blossom, how delightful!
Good morning, where are the bees?
They’re further on, about 100 metres from here.
We’ve positioned some bees there that we use for pollinating.
Who’s ‘we’?
Those of us who work for Melavì’s technical service,
we asked some beekeepers to position their bees for pollination.
Bees are really important, they pollinate the apple blossoms
and that allows the blossoms to develop into the fruit.
The bees have to work incredibly hard,
with 700 hectares of apple blossom to pollinate!
These bees, therefore, are nomads, and they’re moved as and when their work is needed.
When did apple growing begin here?
Here in Alta Valtellina it began in the eighties,
and from there production continued to grow.
Don’t you think there are too many hectares here?
Who knows? There are so many apples and a lot more people should eat them!
The solution might be to find new varieties,
more eye-catching or flavoursome, so as to encourage consumers to try them.
Long live the apple!
We’re at the Valtellina’s largest fruit-growing cooperative, Melavì.
Once the apples have been picked, at the cooperative’s headquarters,
they are sorted by size and type.
They are then stored in refrigeration cells, using a very special technology,
within which the atmosphere is oxygen free.
There isn’t even enough oxygen to breath in this cell,
it is removed in order to preserve the apples better. Every self-respecting cooperative has its own space for selling to the public,
with every type of product, based on apples, naturally.
The Valtellina apple!
A PGI product.
In this case, the Melavì!