The Valente Family: a Legacy of Innovation and Resilience

For most growers horticulture isn’t just about growing fruit — it’s about solving problems you can’t control with tools you have to invent.

This statement has guided many in the field, and for Alessandro Valente, 58, the testimony could not be more accurate.

L-R - Chris Turnbull, Alessandro Valente, Cristian Ferrari

“I was very young, still a kid, and I was thrown into the car to accompany my father (Pietro) on his visits to customers, which could last up to a week,” Alessandro said. 

Whilst studying to be a surveyor many years later, Alessandro was still visiting orchards with his father. It was on a trip to the famous apple region of South Tyrol when: 

“He said to me: ‘See all those orchards? We have to cover them. You have to start designing and figuring out how to do it.” 

Alessandro did not hear this as a pipe dream, he took it as an instruction and from 1986 to 1990, tackled the task head on developing a robust system that would last for many decades. There is little wonder that Alessandro is now the general manager of this thriving international business.

“I spent every week in the countryside thinking, imagining, studying, testing, and finally proposing covers for those trees,” he said.

By the 1980s, Valente was producing lighter, straight posts with a substantial production increase. A diverse range of orchard protection solutions were also on offer. 

“One day, a customer came to us because he was looking for something to attach to the pole to create an innovative form of vineyard cultivation called GDC (Geneva Double Curtain - a split canopy trellis). My father created a metal arm that perfectly met the customer's needs.” 

It was this ingenuity that gave birth to the metal carpentry department in 1982 to produce new accessories suitable for the new vineyards and orchard system types.

“My father’s soul belonged to agriculture. His family were farmers and their work revolved around cultivating fields. He had developed the practicality typical of a farmer who fights with all his strength against the challenges that nature throws at him.” 

That hands-on resourcefulness even led Pietro and his brothers to modify an American truck, abandoned after World War II, into the first homemade tractor in the area where they lived in Padua near Venice.

Now with 60 years in the industry, Alessandro said people choose his company’s solutions for a range of reasons. 

“We guarantee the highest quality materials designed, manufactured, and tested with automated and robotised production departments. We are the only company to have CAP poles with highest quality and performance certification (DNV product certification for pre-compressed reinforced concrete posts). And to have adopted the LEAN system. Every Valente system is the result of precise calculations, laboratory and field tests, experience, problem solving, and valuable customer input.

“Valente carries out precise, detailed design for all its systems. Our solutions are easy and simple to install and maintain. We provide technical support or an installation service. Our solutions are fully customisable with detailed technical documentation on each item and each system. 

“We invest in research and development, the well-being of our people and staff training for prepared, serious, proactive professionals.”

After decades immersed in orchard and vineyard solutions in northern Italy, Alessandro’s passion is not diminished. 

“Vineyards and orchards are evolving in an environment that is ever-changing. New varieties, cultivation techniques, precision agriculture, the challenge of climate change, new technologies today and who knows, what challenges tomorrow will bring.  This constantly stimulates us to listen, study, and understand the changes taking place and respond to new problems.”

Today, Alessandro is the general manager and co-owns the business with his brother Alberto. They supply their solutions in 60 countries around the world.

“Working with family is not easy, but we have set ourselves rules that we follow scrupulously,” he said. 

“We each have well-defined roles, we hold regular meetings, give unconditional help where requested, with no criticism of the person, instead, solutions to critical issues that have emerged.” 

Through respect, listening, passion, and reliability—values that mirror their personal beliefs—they have cultivated a thriving company culture. 

Today at Valente headquarters a 15,000 sqm production plant is equipped with state-of-the-art technology to enable the innovative 34-metre high tower concrete plant, to hold 400 cubic meters of inert material and up to 1000 tons of concrete. The mix is released along 5 production lines that can produce 60,000 linear meters of pre-stressed concrete posts daily.

Valente offers everything from pre-stressed concrete posts and galvanized steel poles to hail, rain, insect, and sun protection covers, anchors, wires, and cables, as well as all the necessary accessories. 

Valente is certified according to the UNI EN ISO 9001:2015 standard, the latest standard currently available. TIn addition, Valente has obtained the prestigious DNV product certification for pre-compressed reinforced concrete posts. This standard certifies concrete post for durability, frost resistance and mechanical strength, material dosing, mixing, strict quantity and quality controls.

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