It’s easy to talk about “pristine mountains.” Or “Made in Italy.” Or “from producer to consumer.” Over the years, ski lifts and other infrastructure have covered much of the Alps in concrete, while industrial globalization has decimated businesses that handle the entire production cycle locally.

Fortunately, there are still some notable exceptions. The cooperative Valverbe is one of them. For 40 years, it has been producing organic mountain herbal teas from medicinal and aromatic plants grown in Val Varaita, an area known for its traditional architecture and Occitan culture. It is a rare example of gentle, sustainable tourism, where human intervention has yet to disrupt the natural balance.

It is a story of ancient traditions combined with modern production technology, preserving the value of mountain communities, short supply chains and the circular economy.

“It all began in 1985, when my parents left their factory jobs in the lowlands and moved to the family home in Bellino, at an elevation of 4,900 feet,” says Luca Fasano, the company’s president and CEO.

There, they began reclaiming and cultivating the family’s land, eventually selling loose herbs directly to consumers.

“The microclimate makes Val Varaita an open-air herbal pharmacy, where lemon balm, mallow, mint, passionflower, chamomile, calendula, black currant, linden and hawthorn grow wild.”

The turning point

The breakthrough came in 2000.

With the purchase of a machine for packaging tea into filter bags, Valverbe entered the world of herbal teas — a market that until then had been dominated by tea and chamomile — as well as so-called functional infusions, designed to aid digestion, detoxify the body, strengthen the immune system or promote relaxation before sleep.

Growth

Expansion meant reclaiming new land for organic cultivation — the company now has 70 hectares, from the steep slopes of Bellino down to the valley floor — along with new facilities, increasingly structured management and additional employees. In all, 50 people now work across the agricultural and production operations.

The company also moved to a new headquarters in Melle, in the middle section of the valley.

“Today,” Fasano says, “our agricultural company operates according to a local supply chain model that is unique in the industry. It covers everything from cultivation and harvesting to drying and blending, all the way to the finished product packaged in filter bags, with constant control over every stage of the production process.”

In other words, “from seed to tea bag,” which is also Valverbe’s slogan.

That evolution has been rewarded by the market.

Over the past two decades, the Cuneo-based company has become one of Italy’s leading organic herbal tea producers, accounting for 4% of national consumption and offering about 100 different flavors and blends. Half of its production carries the Valverbe brand, while the other half is produced under license for other companies, including large retailers.

“Every year, we process more than 100,000 kilograms of dried mountain herbs, which are turned into about 70 million tea bags and 3.5 million boxes,” Fasano says, ticking off the numbers. “All our plants are grown without pesticides, GMOs or other chemical pollutants, helping to preserve environmental biodiversity. They are also cold-dehydrated using an innovative system known as ‘open-cell’ drying, which preserves the cell membrane and, as a result, retains the properties, aroma and active compounds of the fresh plant.

“It’s a revolution compared with the traditional method.”

The company’s green approach

It’s not just the raw materials. Sustainability is built into Valverbe’s entire production model: packaging made from recyclable and compostable materials, efforts to reduce its environmental footprint, electric vehicles and energy sourced entirely from renewable sources, including a mobile solar “flower” whose petals open at dawn and close at sunset.

“Even the cotton thread used to close the filter bags is environmentally friendly,” Fasano says. The bags are made entirely of natural, unbleached, unglued paper, with no microplastics or staples.

In addition to organic herbal teas, the Cuneo-based company uses its mountain medicinal plants to produce cooking spices, balsamic candies, genepy and other loose herbs sold in bags. It also makes mother tinctures, propolis and glycerin macerates, organic gemmotherapy extracts for pharmaceutical use, and constitutional waters for cosmetics.

It is a model example of the circular economy, where, to borrow Lavoisier’s words, “nothing is created, nothing is destroyed, everything is transformed.”

— © ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.