Bondolio’s eco friendly mill
On the morning of September 25, 2015, Karen depressed a blue button and the new eco-friendly Bondolio mill came to life. The mill is eco-friendly because the Bondolio mill uses the next generation of Italian olive mill decanter technology that separates the olive meat (paté) from the olive pit (pumice). This function of the new decanter fits the mission statement of the Bondolio mill which is to produce no waste water nor any waste material at all. The paté can be used to make bread, pasta or can be provided to livestock as a supplement to their feed. The pumice can be used as fuel in Bondolio’s wood burning pizza oven. The absence of waste is due principally to the Pieralisi Leopard DMF or the multi function decanter. Unlike traditional 3 phase olive mills that produce significant amounts of waste water, the Leopard DMF produces next to zero waste water. Bondolio is the first olive mill in the USA to have this technology.
Ceramic tile helps keep the Bondolio mill hygienic
Mill Design
As you know the Bondolio follows the small farm practices of Southern Italy and Sicily of widely spaced trees that are pruned to maximize sun & fresh air to the center of the olive trees. Bondolio’s new mill layout was also inspired from the mills Karen has been fortunate to visit in Southern Italy and Sicily. For example, the Bondolio mill features completely tiled floors and walls. The tile floor and walls provides the entire mill with a ‘clean room / hygienic’environment which is somewhat unique in California but quite common in Italian olive mill settings ranging in size from small family farms to large coop processing plants. Common sense tells you the clean room approach naturally benefits the quality of the olive milling by almost eliminating the possibilities of introducing undesirable smells or other contaminants into the oil. The linear layout of the mill was also influenced by Italian mills. The mill manufacturer, Pieralisi, located in the city of Jesi, Italy, worked closely with the Bond family to achieve a mill which would provide the master miller with an unobstructed view of the entire operation during processing as well as easy access to every component for cleaning between batches.
