DiLuca & Di Luca AB, Stockholm, Sweden
DiLuca & Di Luca AB, Stockholm, Sweden
Fernando Di Luca, the founder of the company Di Luca & Di Luca, is the man that introduced olive oil to the Swedes back in the 1970s. Today Di Luca & Di Luca are market leaders in several categories such as olive oil, Parmesan cheese and olives. Nowadays Fernando runs the company together with his three children: Christian, Gabriella and Paula.
(Champion Il Numero Uno)
I believe in the principle of giving more than you take. That then rubs off on everyone around you, enthuses others and is necessary if you really want to achieve something. In the beginning, my motivation was to build a prosperous and viable company. My mission now is to spread the role of the Mediterranean cuisine in the quest for good health.
I come from Fano in Marche and my mother was my biggest role model in the kitchen. She taught me the importance of really good raw ingredients, to eat things that are in season and to laugh around the dinner table. Most of all she gave me the love for Italian Mediterranean food, the most flavoursome cuisine in the world. The fact that it is healthy was an added bonus. Sadly, that's not the case for everyone’s diet.
Today lifestyle diseases linked to our welfare society are spreading and many people are suffering from diabetes as well as cardiovascular diseases. It makes me very frustrated. Surely it must be better to teach people how to eat and keep themselves healthy with their choice of diet, instead of trying to cure them when they are ill!
That's my vocation in life and my mission.
To me, the olive oil has always been the heart of the Mediterranean kitchen. I am perhaps more or less obsessed in my ambition to enlighten the Swedes and make them see the advantages. But when I came to Sweden in the 1960s, olive oil was only sold as a form of stomach medicine in the pharmacies, so the quest is far from finished! More people need to discover things like olive oil being the only type of fat in the world that can be called healthy, regulated by both the European and American Food Standards Agency.
That is largely because olive oil is rich in monounsaturated fat as well as polyphenols, an extra potent antioxidant that for instance inhibit inflammations in the human body and have a positive effect on blood lipids. Right now there are intense scientific research all around the world on the effect polyphenols have on one's health and I am impatiently waiting for even more reports to confirm what I already know - namely that olive oil moisturises the body from the inside in the best way possible.
I personally spice up my breakfast every day with a glug of olive oil and considering how healthy and vital I am for my age, it has to contain a touch of magic. As a result, my well-being has become my driving force, and I wish everyone the same good health!
Fernando Di Luca received an award from the Gastronomic Academy for his part in bringing olive oil into the Swedish cuisine in year 2004, the Golden Fork award in 2005 for educating the general population in the topic of gastronomy., and was awarded Albert Bonnier prize in 2013 as Entrepreneur Of The Year as well as the Royal Patriotic Association's gold medal in 2013 for invaluable within Swedish trade and industry.