The chestnut consortium of vallecamonica

History

The Chestnut Consortium was founded in Paspardo, a small town in the middle of Valle Camonica at 1000 m a.s.l. in spring 1996 on the initiative of the local Municipal Administration and a group of private citizens, committed to implementing a positive process to promote the great heritage that Valle Camonica’s chestnut trees represent.

The Consortium today

The Chestnut Consortium is an acclaimed and recognised project, which today consists of:

A membership base of over 150 ordinary and funding members.
Though with a limited organizational structure, the Consortium has its own established brand, popular and value-added products such as I CASTAGNOLI, LE DELIZIE, and LE GOCCE DI CASTAGNA (also registered trademarks), packaged chestnut flour and dried chestnuts also with their own brand, and other confectionery products.
A logistics structure and biscuit workshop for processing and hand-crafting baked products and a mill for cold-stone milling fresh chestnuts (which leaves the nutritional properties of the chestnut intact), a drying area for long-term preservation of chestnuts.
Significant experience in harvesting, treating, preserving, and marketing fresh and processed products.
Significant experience in Research and Development of chestnut-based derived products in collaboration with the Institutes of Tree Crops and Food Technologies of the University of Milan such as CHESTNUT DISTILLATE.

Experience in restorative pruning and chestnut tree development.

The Consortium is therefore an authoritative representative for recuperating chestnut cultivation in the Valley and is fully willing to share experiences and knowledge with the other valleys and areas in the Brescia province.

Services for members

The consortium offers its members exclusive services, the most important of which is assistance in managing their chestnut groves and the possibility of buying harvested chestnuts. Discover how to become a member and the services reserved for you.

The main activities conducted for members are:

Forest production chain for which the following are performed:

Operations such as restorative pruning, recuperating, preserving, production, development, and improvement of local varieties;
Functional arranging and caring for the undergrowth with consequent commercial use of resulting firewood;

Chestnut production chain for which we provide the following activities:

Harvesting and collecting fresh product, subsequent sorting, treatment and storage of the fruits and market placement; subsequently the fresh product is processed into dried chestnuts and flour and then into derived products such as biscuits, etc. etc.