In 1997, considering the remarkable success of the first branch shakers for olive harvesting in Spain and considering it was a “suitable” product to our company, we began the design and testing of this new machine.
The first prototype of the shaker was presented at the EIMA Fair in 1998, where he won the award for technical innovation.
In Spain, the sales of the machine had immediate success leading us to be among the market leaders in a short time.
In Italy, however, despite our efforts, we could not convince the sales network and many of our attempts went in vain. The most common answer was “it’s a machine too hard to use, no one will ever buy.”
Unlike the others, one of our dealers of Avellino, intrigued by the boom of sales in Spain, decided to go personally to test the machine during the harvesting season and he came back excited.
With the belief that the machine would be sold here in Italy, he proposed to take the exclusive distribution for the country. For our part, given the difficulty of a direct distribution, we accepted the challenge and found an agreement to do a trial period.
Claudio Zanchi
Claudio Zanchi, as I remember, to the disagreement of the other partners, decided to found his own company, the Zanchi.net, thus beginning the spread of a new method of harvesting.
He began to visit the olive groves, one by one! Where he could see people intent in the collection, he stopped for a demonstration test of the machine which, thanks to its features and speed of collection, had an immediate success, and often sold it immediately.
In each area, following the sale of some machines, he tried to find a good reseller who could give assistance and follow up the additional sales.
His dedication, stubbornness and ability have created from scratch the Italian market of shakers. All those who came after, nearly always has simply followed his path.
This year Zanchi.Net celebrates 15 years, fifteen years of success and hard work.
On that machine that no one would buy, Claudio was able to build a company.
Even today Claudio Zanchi and his team (especially I want to remember Alan and Maria Laura) are our exclusive distributor for shakers in Italy.
We can still say that the best way to sell it is through a field demonstration.
If the shaker has become a successful product of Cifarelli Spa, it is also thanks to Claudio Zanchi and his team.
