Urbani’s Truffle supply chain
A practical project moving across sustainability and continuity to promote truffle and its cultivation.
Sustainability, innovation, traceability, monitoring and future. These are the keywords of Urbani’s Truffle supply chain, a project actually born in March 2023 with the help of Regione Umbria and 100 local companies, but that had already taken its first steps in 2021, when Urbani Tartufi and Intesa Sanpaolo committed to facilitate access to credit for Urbani’s distribution chain companies.
The goal of this particular project was a financial aid for the agricultural entrepreneurs who wanted to create new truffle facilities and expansions by joining Truffleland, a company specialized in the production and sale of small mycorrhizal truffle plants and in the creation of truffle facilities, funded by the Urbani family in 2017.
Discover the page dedicated to the first truffle supply chain in the world.
“In 170 years of history Urbani has brought truffle to more than 70 countries all over the world, conquering a leading role; our generation couldn’t ignore this process of growth and evolution” – declares Francesco Loreti Urbani, Olga Urbani’s first son. “Our wish to contribute translated into the will to promote truffle in the world of agriculture. That’s how Truffleland was born, Urbani’s new company whose goal is the continuity and promotion of Umbrian, i.e. Italian truffle.”
Truffleland’s supply chain includes the entire life cycle of new truffle plants, with the aim of not only guaranteeing the growth of truffle market, but also of creating a traceability and monitoring system to protect both the consumer and the environment. How? Through actions compensating CO2 and requalifying the land with new biodiversity.
First in the labs and then in Truffleland’s greenhouses the natural processes of water, heat and humidity are recreated in order to produce truffles through mycorrhization of the plants. After a few months, they can be planted elsewhere, thus contributing to the requalification and valorization of the lands cultivating them, e.g. Scheggino, where Urbani’s family and company are born and Truffleland is located.
“Truffle plantations and cultivation are the future of this sector, since they guarantee the continuity of a product that – in this particular historical moment- is suffering the consequences of climate change” – points out Francesco.
Thanks to Urbani’s Truffle supply chain, 250 hectares of land will be cultivated with truffle. 25% of them will grow black truffle, while the remaining 75% summer truffle; by doing so, the estimated production of the facility, from its tenth year, is of 2.000 kg/year of black truffle and 20.000 kg/year of summer truffle.
“We are also realizing a reforestation intervention that will bring new life to the truffle world, finally developing a traceability chain” – concludes Francesco. “We are excited by this project because, as well as producing new truffle, Urbani’s supply chain also performs a great social function by bringing young people closer to the crafts of the past, creating new jobs, not in factories or assembly lines, but in constant contact with nature. Moreover, truffle and its trees are going to design a new green architecture, meaning environmental and human health for the years to come.”
A project looking at the future of truffle and agriculture in a sustainable way, starting from Urbani’s most authentic roots: Umbria, Scheggino and its land.
