Some ingredients can be ordered all year round.

And then there are ingredients you simply have to wait for.

An artichoke does not follow an industrial production schedule.
An onion does not ripen because a production line needs to start.
A tomato does not reach its ideal stage because the market demands it.

Nature has its own timing.

That is why, when we at Novella say “processed from fresh”, we are not simply describing a raw material.

We are describing a production choice.

It means organising people, production lines, supplies and processing around the moment when the vegetables arrive from the fields.

It means embracing seasonality.

It means working against the clock.

And it means continuing to rely on skilled hands for certain operations that machines might make easier, but not necessarily the same.

For us, working from fresh is not a slogan.

It is a way of producing food.

And behind this choice, there is also a great deal of science.

A vegetable does not stop living when it is harvested

This is the first concept to understand.

Harvesting does not biologically “stop” a vegetable.

Once separated from the plant, vegetable tissue remains metabolically active: it continues to respire, loses water and undergoes physiological and biochemical changes.

This is one of the fundamental principles of postharvest physiology.

Postharvest biology studies precisely how time, temperature, water loss, respiration and storage conditions influence the quality of vegetables after harvest.[1]

Colour, texture, aroma and nutritional characteristics are therefore not static.

That is why, when fresh raw materials are processed, time becomes part of the process itself.

From the moment of harvest, every hour begins to matter.

From the field to our production facility: quality does not begin on the production line

The quality of a preserved vegetable does not begin when the jar is sealed.

It begins much earlier.

It begins with the variety that is grown.

With the soil.

With the weather conditions.

With the moment of harvest.

With the stage of maturity.

And with the way the raw material is handled once it leaves the field.

Scientific literature on postharvest quality shows that cultivar, preharvest conditions, maturity stage, handling, temperature and the interval between harvest and processing can all influence the composition and quality characteristics of fruit and vegetables.[1][2]

This means that there is no such thing as simply “an artichoke” or “a vegetable”.

There is that particular variety.

Harvested at that particular moment.

With that texture.

That colour.

That structure.

And that is where our work begins.

Seasonality is not nostalgia. It is a process variable.

Talking about seasonality may sound romantic.

For a food company, however, it is something extremely tangible.

An agricultural raw material changes throughout the season.

In the case of artichokes, research has demonstrated this particularly clearly.

A study conducted by Italian researchers and published in Postharvest Biology and Technology found that harvest date influences the quality of artichokes intended for fresh-cut processing, with differences in quality characteristics and phenolic compounds throughout the season.[3]

Another study on artichokes showed that storage time and temperature before cutting can influence subsequent product quality.[4]

For us, the conclusion is fascinating in its simplicity:

the moment at which a raw material is processed matters.

Seasonality, therefore, is not simply a nostalgic story about “the way things used to be done”.

It is a real variable of the raw material.

Then comes the cut. And the vegetable reacts.

When a vegetable is trimmed, peeled or cut, something happens that we can only partially see with the naked eye.

The plant tissue is mechanically damaged.

Physiological and enzymatic reactions are triggered.

Susceptibility to oxidation can increase.

Changes in colour, texture and aroma can occur.

Scientific literature on fresh-cut produce describes how cutting operations can accelerate several deterioration processes compared with intact vegetables.[5]

The artichoke is an extraordinary example.

It is a complex raw material and particularly susceptible to browning after cutting. Specific studies have also shown that different cultivars can behave very differently, both in their phenolic composition and in their susceptibility to browning.[6]

Selecting, trimming and cutting an artichoke therefore does not simply mean “preparing it”.

It means working with living plant tissue.

And from that moment onwards, precision and speed become essential.

Why we still use our hands

This is where science meets something we do not want to lose.

Craftsmanship.

Agricultural raw materials are naturally irregular.

An artichoke is not an industrial component.

It does not always have the same diameter.

It does not always have the same leaves.

It does not always have exactly the same shape.

That is why, in some of our processes, the human hand continues to play a fundamental role.

Take our Carciogoloso, for example.

Fresh artichokes are carefully prepared to reach the heart.

They are trimmed.

Prepared.

And, for certain products, cut and placed into the jars by hand.

Not because we want to artificially create an “artisan” image.

But because working with an agricultural raw material also means knowing how to recognise and manage its natural differences.

A machine seeks repeatability.

An experienced hand can interpret variability.

At Novella, industrial production and craftsmanship are not necessarily opposites.

Our approach is to bring the expertise of manual processing into a controlled food production process.

Transform as little as possible? Not exactly.

Here, we want to be precise.

Simply saying that the aim of food processing is “not to change the vegetable” would be technically incorrect.

Every transformation process inevitably changes a raw material.

The real question is different:

how can we transform it while preserving the quality characteristics we want to find in the finished product?

That is one of the central challenges of food technology.

Operations such as blanching, acidification, seasoning and thermal processing have specific technological and food-safety functions.

Blanching, for example, is used in vegetable processing for purposes including enzyme inactivation, microbial-load reduction and the modification or stabilisation of certain product characteristics.[7]

At the same time, however, processing time and temperature can affect colour, texture and nutritional components.

A thermal treatment should therefore never be considered simply as “heat”.

It is a balance of process conditions.

Pasteurisation means finding a balance

This is another concept that strongly reflects the way we work.

A preserved food must first and foremost be safe.

But thermal processing inevitably affects the product.

Research into the thermal pasteurisation of vegetables examines precisely this balance: achieving the required microbiological and technological effect while considering the changes that time and temperature can produce in product quality.[8]

Colour.

Texture.

Structure.

Aroma.

Stability.

These are not separate from the process.

They are part of the process.

And this is where technology stops being the opposite of craftsmanship.

It becomes the tool that allows us to preserve over time what skilled hands have prepared.

Fresh does not simply mean “better”

Here, scientific accuracy matters.

Science does not support the claim that every fresh vegetable is always, in absolute terms, superior to every frozen, preserved or otherwise stabilised raw material.

That would be an oversimplification.

Every food technology has its own advantages, purposes and applications.

So when Novella talks about processing from fresh, we are not trying to establish a universal ranking.

We are describing the kind of product we have chosen to create.

For some of our specialities, we are looking for a particular structure.

A particular texture.

A precise sensory identity.

And to achieve that result, we have chosen to start with fresh raw materials.

It is a technological choice before it is a marketing claim.

The paradox of fresh: to respect it, you have to move fast

This is perhaps the part consumers see the least.

Processing fresh vegetables makes industrial organisation considerably more complex.

Agricultural seasons do not last twelve months.

Raw materials may arrive in large quantities within relatively short harvesting windows.

Volumes can increase suddenly.

Production lines must be available.

People must be ready.

Supplies of jars, lids, oils and other ingredients must be coordinated.

Production has to follow the field.

Not the other way around.

This means that behind an apparently simple jar there can be an extremely complex organisation.

Fresh produce does not wait until the factory is ready.
The factory has to be ready when the fresh produce arrives.

Carciogoloso: perhaps the best way to explain who we are

If we had to choose one product to tell the story of this philosophy, it would probably be Carciogoloso.

The artichoke is an unforgiving raw material.

It is highly seasonal.

It is irregular.

It requires careful preparation.

It reacts when cut.

And it is susceptible to oxidation and browning.

For all these reasons, it perfectly represents what it means to process vegetables from fresh.

Scientific literature on artichokes confirms just how much cultivar, harvest timing, storage conditions and cutting operations can influence product quality.[3][4][6]

To this complexity, we add something that belongs to our own history:

hands.

Hands that select.

Hands that trim.

Hands that prepare.

Hands that carefully place the product into the jar.

Then come technology, controls and the production process.

And it is from the meeting of these two worlds that our way of making preserved vegetables is born.

Some products are manufactured. Others have to be waited for.

Waiting for the season.

Waiting for the right raw material.

And then, when it arrives, there is no more time to wait.

Process it.

Respect it.

Transform it.

Control it.

Preserve it.

For us, working from fresh means exactly this.

Not trying to remove nature from industrial food production.

Quite the opposite.

It means organising production around nature.

It is more complex.

It requires planning.

It requires people.

It requires speed.

It requires expertise.

And sometimes it also means accepting that a product cannot be made exactly when we would like it to be.

But it is a choice we continue to make.

Because when we open a jar, we want to find something we recognise.

A texture.

A colour.

A structure.

A flavour.

And behind all of this, a story that begins long before the lid is closed.

It begins in a field.

Nature decides when.
Skilled hands decide how.
Technology helps us preserve it.

That is what working from fresh means to us.

Scientific sources

[1] Kader A.A. Postharvest Technology of Horticultural Crops – An Overview from Farm to Fork. University of California, Davis – Postharvest Research and Extension Center, 2013.

[2] Kader A.A., Rolle R.S. The Role of Post-harvest Management in Assuring the Quality and Safety of Horticultural Produce. FAO Agricultural Services Bulletin 152, Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, Rome, 2004.

[3] Ricci I., Amodio M.L., Colelli G. Influence of pre-cutting operations on quality of fresh-cut artichokes (Cynara scolymus L.): Effect of harvest dates. Postharvest Biology and Technology. 2013;83:90–96. DOI: 10.1016/j.postharvbio.2013.03.004.

[4] Ricci I., Amodio M.L., Colelli G. Influence of pre-cutting operations on quality of fresh-cut artichokes (Cynara scolymus L.): Effect of storage time and temperature before cutting. Postharvest Biology and Technology. 2013;85:124–131. DOI: 10.1016/j.postharvbio.2013.05.011.

[5] Barrett D.M., Beaulieu J.C., Shewfelt R. Color, flavor, texture, and nutritional quality of fresh-cut fruits and vegetables: desirable levels, instrumental and sensory measurement, and the effects of processing. Critical Reviews in Food Science and Nutrition. 2010;50(5):369–389. DOI: 10.1080/10408391003626322.

[6] Cabezas-Serrano A.B., Amodio M.L., Cornacchia R., Rinaldi R., Colelli G. Screening quality and browning susceptibility of five artichoke cultivars for fresh-cut processing. Journal of the Science of Food and Agriculture. 2009. DOI: 10.1002/jsfa.3759.

[7] Xiao H.-W., Pan Z., Deng L.-Z., et al. Recent developments and trends in thermal blanching – A comprehensive review. Information Processing in Agriculture. 2017;4(2):101–127. DOI: 10.1016/j.inpa.2017.02.001.

[8] Peng J., Tang J., Barrett D.M., Sablani S.S., Anderson N., Powers J.R. Thermal pasteurization of ready-to-eat foods and vegetables: Critical factors for process design and effects on quality. Critical Reviews in Food Science and Nutrition. 2017. DOI: 10.1080/10408398.2015.1082126.

The sources cited include peer-reviewed scientific publications and authoritative technical literature in the fields of postharvest physiology and food technology.