Historical development of JUVAL
We write the year 1933. The annual proceeds from the sales of agricultural products mainly depended on the discretion of a few fruit dealers. There was a general crisis situation characterized by a difficult economic climate and the aftermaths of World War I. Ten farmers from Castelbello, Colsano and Ciardes understood the signs of the times and founded the Castelbello cooperative – „Consorzio Frutticoltori della Media Val Venosta di Castelbello-Ciardes, Società Anonima cooperativa“ according to the law then in force – on 19 March of the same year.
The young cooperative started immediately with the construction of the new cooperative building in Castelbello-Maregno, which was then a highly expensive project: two credits of 110,000 lire were raised for financing the construction of the building. If we consider that the first harvest quantity equalled 120 tons, the storage capacities of 850 tons were respectable.
The first business years were far from easy. In addition to leadership changes and resignations, commissarial management was decided in 1940. World War II also left its traces.
The year 1947 brought a new beginning for the Castelbello cooperative. The cooperative had only had 9 members and app. 150 suppliers from the area between Castelbello and Parcines so far. The latter were now admitted as members and the cooperative’s name was changed to UVO.
In 1950, the members from Parcines left the association and founded their own cooperative: POG, while the members from Castelbello-Colsano left the association in 1965 and founded the OGK Castelbello cooperative on 10 August, whereas the members from Naturno and Plaus founded the NOG cooperative.
The autonomous cooperatives developed successfully in the following years and reached a considerable size. 35 years after the separation economic interests were again decisive for future decisions. First talks about the reunion of the OGK and UVO cooperatives took place in 1998– as if they wanted to turn back time.
The following three years were characterized by intense negotiations and studies. In December 2001, the members of the Castelbello and UVO Ciardes cooperatives agreed to the merger and therefore to the reunion of the two cooperatives.
The new JUVAL cooperative
The new cooperative called JUVAL Castelbello-Ciardes-Stava S.r.l. with registered office in Castelbello-Ciardes, Via Statale 26 was founded on 13 April 2003. The cooperative had 283 members and quantities of 50,360 tons in the foundation year.
In November 2006, the approval of the new marketing concepts by the JUVAL members represented a milestone in the history of the cooperative. All fruit produced by the different Val Venosta cooperatives will in future be commercialized by VI.P according to the motto of „One client – one offer“.
Interesting information
The GREEFA sorting machine which was acquired by UVO in 1966 cost 1,187,950 lire = 613.52 euros and had an hourly output of app. 2,000 kg. The GREEFA sorting machine which was acquired by JUVAL in 2002 cost 2,130,300.00 euros and has an hourly output of app. 20,000 kg.
2,860 tons of apples, 660 tons of pears and app. 400 tons of apricots were delivered in 1948, whereas 46,480 tons of apples, 5 tons of pears and 40 tons of apricots were delivered in 2006.
Kalterer Böhmer was quantitatively the most important variety between 1947 and 1965, while Golden Delicious has been the most produced variety since 1969.
In 1970, members got the price of 79 lire = 0.041 euros for the Golden Delicious variety; in 2007, the Golden Delicious price was 0.4667 euros.
