Four robots in the Acqua Amata warehouses ready to go

Lgv robots in the warehouses, processing waste recovered by up to 99%, and mineral water bottling capacity quadrupled, up to half a billion bottles a year. This is happening in Casamassima, in the province of Bari, at Castello srl, the company (turnover in 2023 at 9.2 million, up from 7.2 million the previous year) that, with the Acqua Amata brand, is committed to an investment plan that, in 2023, has earned it twelfth place in the 2024 Stars of Southern Italy 2024 ranking by Statista-Il Sole 24 Ore, in terms of performance in tangible fixed assets, among all 200 companies involved in the research.

Active since 1996, the limited company controlled by the MGA holding - whose consolidated turnover reached 50 million last year, with 90 employees and headquarters in Milan - will complete its planned investments of 9 million this year. Also financed by Industry 4.0, and decided at the end of 2022, these investments are intended to multiply the production capacity of the bottling lines, which, by 2026, will reach 420% more, up to half a billion bottles per year. The expansion will also include the entry, by this September, of 4 Lgv robots (sort of forklifts that move the platforms with autonomous guidance thanks to lasers) for the automated management of the warehouses.

Recycling close to 99% of processing waste is the other strong point of this group born from the decision of the founder, Giovanni Mazzone, now 89 years old, to exploit the source of mineral water discovered in the land he inherited, an uncultivated hectare. The processing waste (residues of the bottle preform, cork or other) is in fact returned to the supplier of the same preform and therefore Acqua Amata uses bottles obtained with 100% recycled PET, well over the 25% that the EU will impose from 2025 and 30% from 2030. The entire processing cycle, which begins with water taken from the spring at a depth of 600 metres and then routed through stainless steel pipelines capable of maintaining its chemical composition and purity unaltered, is monitored every day with 1,500 chemical and microbiological laboratory analyses. Distribution is in the large-scale retail trade, in automatic vending, but a small glass bottle plant is also planned to enter the Horeca channel.

'The MGA group,' anticipates Matteo Avella, the third generation in the company together with his brother Giovanni, 'wants to grow above all by external lines, and for this reason we are looking at the nearby Basilicata region, at the volcanic mining basin of Rionero in Vulture. With Avella, the group is also looking at renewables. Along with mineral water, the group is also aiming at energy (a 45 MW photovoltaic park plan for almost 40 million investments in the next few years), real estate, and development in agricultural activities, today concentrated on almost 100 hectares, including vineyards, cherry orchards and olive groves, mainly in the south-east of Bari.