Don Ciccio is our leading oil because it represents our story, as well as a vision of the land and work which still today represents the essence of the values that guide us.

It was he who started the enterprise, including our olive oil refinery, the family olive grove and above all the experience that still makes us a point of reference in the production of quality oil in Sicily, both for the excellence of our produce, and for the fidelity we guarantee every time the precision of our oil refinery is called upon.

Back in 1953, when grandpa Ciccio bought the first hydraulic pressing systems, which immediately handled what was needed, and through the knowledge of his vocation in engineering, he simultaneously applied for his passport and a visa for Australia: a pioneering headway, showing his nature as a man ever-ready to bet on his intuition and his desire for change that has been passed on to us both in our genes and by following his example.

After a few months, it was clear that the visa for Australia would be put aside and that the family business would put its roots down in the land where it was founded.

At that time, the South-east of Sicily was full of olive groves, but there wasn’t an olive oil refinery able to face the technical challenge of a careful and precise processing in a serious and reliable way, that would make a difference to the final result.

This was the challenge took up by grandpa Ciccio first and, since the Eighties, papa Giorgio and mamma Anna Valeria: a further step towards the future was made, not without the usual tensions arising when ideas are plentiful, determined and in constant evolution. That was, indeed, the moment of introduction of the first continuous cycle system replacing hydraulic pressing: for a few years the two systems worked together in the same room, with regular clients supporting tradition or innovation, until grandpa Ciccio accepted the necessary innovation and dismantled the old machineries that he loved so much with his own hands.

His destiny was marked: our olive oil refinery was constantly growing with the desire to evermore enhance the precision and level of services, innovating by means of constant shrewdness in the oil processing plant, complete customer care even in the preliminary stages – the picking and the transportation – and a “guided journey” to make clients aware of the quality of oil.

A journey that, since 1990, has launched us on the market as protagonists, in the role of producers of an oil created directly from our olive groves in Modica and from a selection of monocultivars from the other great territories of Sicilian oil. Today, we want our Ruta brand to be synonymous with excellent extra-virgin olive oil, a mark of a familiar identity and of a production philosophy that includes sustainable farming practices, high-quality professionalism in processing, a strong link to local culture and a prioritised attention to flavour and the organoleptic properties of each label.

Graziana & Francesco Ruta