Bergamot essential oil comes only from the peel of the fruit, and only cold: no solvents, no distillation. What has changed over three centuries is the way the peel is “opened”. Here is the story in pictures, from the sponge to the centrifuge.
The bergamot supply chain of Reggio Calabria
Hectares, harvest, workers, processing: in a few minutes, the full picture of a crop that exists almost only here, along 100 km of Ionian coast between Villa San Giovanni and Monasterace.
Report by Il Sole 24 ORE (not embeddable, opens on the publisher’s site): Il bergamotto di Reggio Calabria profuma il mondo — 2,200 hectares under cultivation, 300,000 quintals harvested, 8,000 workers. In Italian.
Italian audio; the images speak for themselves.
Until 1844: the sponge of the “spiritari”
The fruit was cut in half and the pulp removed with a small rake. The peel was then pressed against a natural sponge, which absorbed the oil; from time to time the sponge was wrung out into a bowl. Slow work, done by hand fruit by fruit by the “spiritari”. In the video, the ancient technique performed today.
1844: the “Calabrian machine”
Nicola Barillà, from Reggio, patented a machine with two cups, one fixed and one rotating, both lined with abrasive points. The peel is grated instead of pressed: processing time collapses and the oil comes out cleaner. This is the machine that turned a craft into an industry and made Reggio Calabria the world’s only true bergamot district.
Today: peelers and centrifuges
Modern peelers, built by Calabrian workshops, process whole fruits with rollers, discs and screws lined with stainless-steel graters. While the peel is abraded, jets of nebulised water carry away the emulsion of water and oil. The emulsion goes into disc centrifuges that separate the oil by specific gravity: no heating, no additives. Two by-products are not wasted: the juice, for food use, and the spent peel, from which pectin is extracted.
Harvesting is by hand, from November to March, when the fruit turns from green to yellow: that is when the peel holds the most oil.
Two television reports worth watching (Italian, not embeddable, they open on the broadcasters’ sites):
- Melaverde, Canale 5: extracting bergamot essential oil, modern peeler and centrifuge, the whole process.
- Linea Verde, Rai 1: the episode from Calabria, ancient techniques and modern technology with the Mediterranean University.
Why this matters to buyers
One litre of oil takes about 200 kg of fruit, and far more “bergamot oil” is sold worldwide than is actually produced. Knowing how the oil is made is the first tool for recognising the genuine one: see our products and ask us for the analyses.