Olio Dante

Olio Dante’s history begins in Genoa in 1849, when Andrea - founder of the Costa family - begins to market and transport olive oil and fabrics from Sardinia to Liguria. In 1854 Giacomo Costa founds the company "Giacomo Costa son of Andrea", specializing in the purchase of raw olive oil in Mediterranean countries in order to export it overseas with the Costa label. In 1898 the first shipments are directed to North America, Argentina and Australia, countries in which the constant flow of Italian emigrants generates a demand for domestic food products. The need to quickly transport their products, leads Giacomo Costa first to use second hand cargo ships and then to build them directly, creating what will later become the fleet of Costa Cruises. Among the various Italian products, the most popular is oil, essential food for Italian cooking but not yet widespread in the Americas, where it is replaced by vegetable and animal fats like butter and margarine. When Eugenio, one of the sons of Giacomo Costa, sets on his first voyage to North America with the aim of consolidating a network of sales, he discovers something surprising: the Americans identify the name Costa more with the Portuguese than with Italians, and therefore considers appropriate to change the label as "the reminder to Italy must be easy and immediate". The idea of giving the name Dante to the exported oil, was to offer the Italians a product that would remind them of motherland and - in the intentions of Giacomo Costa - closely linked to Italy, just as the Supreme Poet. Already in 1904, Olio Dante is so well known in America that at the San Louis Exposition it is awarded its first Grand Gold Medal as best product, which will be followed by the second medal in 1915 in San Francisco and the third in 1935 in Brussels. The choice of the name is so appropriate that someone else tries to get immediately hold of its success. The Spanish launch the oil "Beatrice", with an identical mark in which the aquiline profile of the author of The Divine Comedy is replaced by the one of a gentle muse. In advertising the Costa are at the forefront, the ads in the press are refined both in graphics, and in colour creation, using sometimes Italian and Flemish masterpieces. They are among the first, in 1928, to sign contracts with Eiar for radio ads, paid 2 lire per word and transmitted by the Italian Radio. Then, they pay a designer to create the character of Dantina, a little girl in a short dress, a bow in her hair and baby shoes. The first advertisements in the pages of "Le Vie d’Italia", a historical journal of the Italian Touring Club, date back to 1933. Olio Dante makes its debut in 1959 on the Rai Carousel with Peppino De Filippo, in the shoes of the famous "superfine chef" and, later, with the couple Paolo Panelli e Bice Valori on the Ligurian coast. In 1967 it is awarded the Oscar for the new drop catch capsule contained in the "drop stop" cap.