Race against time to save crops after Melavì bankruptcy

A coalition of the willing to offer an outlet to the many fruit growers left orphaned by the Melavì cooperative, which until a few years ago was the jewel in the crown of apple production in Valtellina but had to take its books to court in the spring. Concordato preventivo a fronte di cessazione attività.

The announcement of the rescue operation arrived in early July, with a joint communiqué from two regional councillors, the one for Agriculture, Alessandro Beduschi, and the one for the Mountains, Massimo Sertori, a native of Sondrio. The companies involved in the rescue operation represent 60% of the production and marketing of Valtellina apples today. The aim is to secure the 2025 campaign and the harvest of members crushed by Melavì's bankruptcy. But what happened to their cooperative?

When it was founded in 2013 as a merger between three different cooperatives, Melavì wanted to be the Valtellina answer to the Trentino success of Melinda. Its potential at the beginning was 300,000 quintals of apples per year, more or less 85% of the entire production of the territory. 'In Valtellina, apart from bresaola, apples and wine have always been the two most representative crops of the agricultural world,' says Valter Rossi, secretary of the Flai-Cgil of Sondrio. In addition to the grower members and conferring members, Melavì had 200 employees including administrative staff, permanent field labourers and seasonal labourers. In 2024, however, the harvest stopped at 68,000 quintals. In not even ten years, what had been born to become the flagship of Valtellina apples was drowning.

Neither the drop in consumption nor competition from Trentino was to blame, nor was the fruit dying on the trees due to pathogenic insects or climate change. Valtellina apples have never lacked a market: 'What has been lacking is teamwork,' says Valter Rossi, 'the cooperative spirit does not belong to the Valtellina culture. But above all, Melavì has sunk under the blows of poor management: costs are too high compared to turnover.

Last autumn, the cooperative tried the route of negotiated settlement, but by spring it had no choice but to announce to the trade unions the opening of bankruptcy proceedings. 'In May,' says Valter Rossi, 'we asked for the extraordinary redundancy fund for cessation of activity, which will be applied to all permanent employees until 31 December. Out of protection remained all the seasonal workers, who are however relocating to other producers in the area, and also an unspecified number of members - between 70 and 140 - of the old bankrupt cooperative. And it is precisely to save the latter that the round table with the Region was set up: 'A group of seven Valtellina apple producers,' says Sandro Bambini, president of Coldiretti Sondrio and himself a member of this handful of volunteers, 'offered to store and market the apples produced by the members who had been left behind. The announcement that Melavì would not be picking up the apples this year did not arrive until 20 May, too late for the producers to organise themselves with an alternative plan'.