Pieralisi opens up to new business

After management experience at Whirpool, Fläkt Group, Philip Morris and Sandvik, Aldino Zeppelli is taking over the helm of an Italian company: he is the new CEO of Pieralisi Group, a world leader in the production of oil machines and a major international player in the supply of centrifugal extraction and separation solutions in numerous application areas.

The company, founded in 1888 in Monsano, in the Vallesina valley, thanks to the intuition of Adeodato Pieralisi, has been for over a century a family-run production reality, projected onto the global market thanks to the visionary Gennaro Pieralisi. For the past four years it has been controlled by DeA Capital, which at the time completed a long-awaited recapitalisation, cleaning up a heavy debt situation and starting the relaunch process: the manager from Emilia will now have the task of accompanying this relaunch phase, with clear prospects for geographical expansion and product diversification, "to reposition customers at the centre of Pieralisi's business model, strengthening assistance services and market proximity". And that's not all: head and production will remain in Jesi, a city that for Zeppelli "is not just a symbol, but the element of recognisability and identity of an area that offers unique skills and a competitive supply chain. Moreover, it represents the link with the origins, without precluding the ambition of global expansion'.

The Pieralisi family remains an important part of the group and will continue to support this re-launch phase: for the CEO, 'it represents a key element of continuity between the deep entrepreneurial origins and the recent managerial impetus'. Under the leadership of Gennaro Pieralisi, known to everyone as 'the engineer', the company launched the first range of centrifugal extractors and vertical separators, kick-starting the new oil extraction process, then making it possible to recover water in various municipal and industrial processes, reduce the volume of sludge, and apply it in biogas and biomass alternative energy plants (it was 1981); a new centrifugal decanter was installed in Europe's largest waterworks Jumbo, providing solutions to any technological water separation problem (1988); and in the olive oil sector, Leopard was born, the two-phase centrifugal extractor with DMF (Multiphase Decanter) technology, capable of recovering a pomace, called pâté, which makes it possible to reduce the waste to be disposed of, creating an added value for the oil miller (2012); up to the Protoreactor®, a unique machine in the world olive oil market, which revolutionised the traditional process of oil milling.

In 2023, Pieralisi had a turnover of 100 million (+5% compared to the previous year), with over 500 employees also distributed in Spain, Greece, the United States, Tunisia, Brazil and Argentina. "Italy is still the main market for the olive oil business, where we are the absolute leader," Zeppelli underlines. "Spain and Brazil are rapidly expanding markets with enormous potential for the olive oil and industrial sectors, also considering the presence of Pieralisi centres of excellence for both the maintenance and overhaul of our products. The United States and the Middle East represent the greatest opportunity for growth, and I am certain that they will be our market in the near future".

Pieralisi's innovation-driven nature will be a key part of its future development strategy, alongside the increased weight of internationalisation. A number of latest-generation machines have been added to the range: the My Mill, a premium product for premium oil production, the new My Blend series of gramers, and an innovative product for high flow rates in industrial applications, presented at IFAT 2024 in Munich. 'We want the world market to see us as a leading company in technological and product development,' Zeppelli emphasises. 'In order to realise this ambition, we will continue to significantly focus our investments on R&D and product development.