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The R&C company was founded in 1992 by Ruggero Rossi and Annamaria Carrea, two graduates in agricultural sciences who applied their skills to an efficient and sustainable production.
After an initial period of production on the heights of Genoa in the neighbourhood of Coronata, since 1997, the company has been cultivating in Genoa Prà on a hill facing the sea surrounded by Mediterranean scrub.
The company boasts three large greenhouses for a total covered area of 4000 square meters. The main product is the bouquet of PDO Genovese Basil, certified PDO since 2006, and harvested according to tradition in highly technological greenhouses, equipped with solar panels and low environmental impact systems. Heating is guaranteed by biomass boilers.
In addition to the owners, eight specialized agricultural workers of many different nationalities work in the company, for a highly integrated multicultural environment that is very attentive to human value.
The Casotti agricultural company is located in the extreme west of the city of Genoa, on a hill overlooking the sea.
The company was founded at the end of the 19th century by the great-great-grandfather of the current owner and was specialized in the trade of best of the season, an activity that continued throughout the 1900s, until the early 90s, a period in which the business was progressively transformed, arriving to today, where there is an exclusive production of basil, 12 months a year, both suitable for processing and hand-picked, in the typical bouquets for fresh consumption.
The crop has been certified PDO Genovese Basil from the first year of establishment of the PDO in 2006.
The company employs six people and is very attentive to sustainable energy issues: methane has been replaced with diesel for heating and a photovoltaic system has been implemented, capable of producing most of the energy used to power the greenhouses.
The Agricultural company of Ratto Francesco is included in the urban fabric of Genova Prà, in the famous Piana Podestà, the area that historically housed specialized agricultural production and which supplied the entire western part of the city with best of the season.
Gradually, the city was literally “built around the vegetable gardens”, leaving the rural land of the plain intact to this day within the ancient farm adjacent to the two Podestà Villas: a real testimony of the “resistance”.
The Ratto company is the most striking example of this “resistance” and of the history contained in this strip of land of ancient agricultural knowledge. The Ratto family has been a family of farmers for generations, very active participant in the culture and notoriety of Genovese Basil, first linked to the fame of Prà and subsequently enhanced with the PDO path.
Since 2009 the company has been producing PDO Genovese Basil and, by virtue of favourable logistics, has always carried out its commercial activity through direct sales, personally taking care of its customers. Today, the company is managed by a Sinhalese agricultural worker expertly coordinated by the stainless Ratto Francesco, perhaps the most representative farmer of the Prà area.
