When Dal Bello SIFE made a step forward.

Lola: nowadays, talking about the sustainability of production, environmental awareness and certification is a matter of course. Certain paths are now obligatory. If you don’t respond to precise company images, the market can be very strict.

We realized it the early 70s, when we began to specialise in importing bananas. Which is now our core business.

Giving a name to your fruit, and building a brand around it, means making the leap in quality: it means moving from a company plays in the fruit and vegetable sector to a brand.

A premium banana, but at a competitive cost? LOLA

LOLA - Marchio Dal Bello SIFE
LOLA MARCHIO DAL BELLO SIFE

With Dal Bello SIFE and the banana Lola we have done it by taking complete control of the supply chain: from cultivation to packaging, from import to ripening, up to distribution throughout the country, and beyond.

The milestone of this operation was to combine a premium offer – in this case, high quality bananas – with a “global” development system, which benefits all the players involved in the chain.

The journey through time of the Lola bananas

We specialized in bananas in the ’70s.

We started by importing the bananas that we ripened in Italy, and that we then distributed. But soon we started to import, by sea transport and directly deliver it.

In this way our logistics network has grown.

So we reached 2006, the year of the brand’s boom. For which we have even forged close ties with Guatemala, whose valuable fruits were until then monopolized by the U.S. market.

We were the first company to bring the Guatemalan banana back to Italy after 20 years.

The bananas we import now are produced in various Latin American countries: Costa Rica, Ecuador, Colombia.

Selection of the best product: Lola is sustainability

The choice of the companies that cultivate the brand banana is made with particular attention. It is the part of the process where our experience takes on the greatest importance.

Our planting partners are local growers who are able to meet the high product standards that we want to offer our customers, and who know how to keep up to date with the use of advanced techniques. But always environmentally friendly.

So we can multi-certify our bananas. The path of the Lola banana is certifiable, traceable, and the hygienic-sanitary and pathophysiological parameters required by our commercial sector are just met.

The Lola banana is traceable, we said. So much so that from the single pack it is possible to go back to the packer, and from here to the plantation and even to the reference lot.

Banana and business

When we created the Lola brand, we said that a fruitful experiment could be to apply a new business model to the supply chain.

A model never seen before in the sector of fruit and vegetables for large-scale distribution.

In fact, we involve our planting partners also from a commercial point of view, through the determination of the price according to market trends. In this way, we guarantee them a share of the profit.

Lola has the right taste

The banana is a fruit that boasts numerous properties.

It is healthy and nutritious but, the taste is one of the characteristics that the final consumer looks for.

Thanks to the path that we have structured, we can offer our customers exquisite bananas, organoleptically superior, because we collect them at the right level of ripeness, and we import, store and move them in the ideal time.

The Lola certifications:

ISO 14001, for the minimization of environmental impacts
EurepGap, which guarantees the use of integrated farming techniques
GlobalGap, which certifies safe products with documented traceability
Better Banana Project, aimed at developing sustainable production and environmental conservation
Bio Certifications