This project was born almost 10 years ago in Sicily from a, after all, coincidental encounter between Guido, a Sicilian farmer and Jennifer an Hongkonger dreamer, and has been evolving ever since. The leading idea is this strong cultural aspect which characterizes Mediterranean regions. A root element that goes back to the beginning of human civilization. That is agriculture: the art of producing food. This project lays its foundation on Guido’s family farm and is propelled by Jennifer enthusiasm for divulgation.
Guido’s family, on both sides, comes from a long and alternating tradition of agriculture and livestock farming. A deep bond with the land and a heritage of great human ability, manual skill, dedication and also stubbornness.
The recent farming history begins around forty years ago when his father Salvatore, inherited his piece of land by the father Orazio and broke the lemon monoculture taboo introducing, in his free time, a few at that time unknown plants called avocado. Today, in that small piece of land, they hold close to one hundred different edible varieties of plants and trees. The steady increase in biodiversity together with the non-entrepreneurial management approach has in fact fostered the propensity to a number of virtuous aspects of agriculture leading their small venture toward other closely related trends such as sustainable development and self-sufficiency. What had begun as a mere hobby, over time became a lifestyle. This also thanks to the many small farmer markets and purchase coops carried out in the area, raising the visitor’s awareness about the big issues of our time, drawing their attention with new and exotic products. And in 2015, after Guido came back from his travels in north Europe, also thanks to many international cultural exchange and farm volunteering projects. It was during one of them, a hot summer morning in 2016, when Jennifer met Guido.
I left Hong Kong in the summer of 2016 in search of an utopia: a dream called self-sufficiency. This is what that is in a city such as Hong Kong. Of course, utopias by definition do not exist, but the goal of my departure was clear.
I was not pursuing grand ideals like democracy or justice, those are the real utopias nowadays. No, I simply wanted to live more autonomously. It was then that I met Guido. His father owns this small organic orchard in Sicily with dozens of fruit varieties. It was just… a dream coming true.
I still remember that day, he picked me up at the station. Suddenly I felt a surge of emotion. Perhaps because it was my birthday. When Guido found out about it, he took me to the cafe in front of the station and ordered me a huge brioche with gelato. This was our sweet start. The rest is history.
Over the years, I have learned more and more about Sicilian culture and food production, and how distant that is from consumers, especially those in big cities. I was telling Guido how difficult and expensive was to source good organic food in the city. He told me why not trying to ease up this problem by providing ours. That is how Trepunti came into being: a platform for food and knowledge – accessible information – to empower people with the right tools to become Conscious Buyers. I couldn’t imagine a more fitting place than Sicily to launch this project.
2015 was also the year when Guido started to take the reigns of the farm (more a dark forest at that time) and thanks to the many exchange programs brought it back to a civilized form. Jennifer’s story also attracted many friends from Hong Kong, curious about her new life and especially after Trepunti’s social references went online in 2018 the phenomena grew consistently.
That was the moment we realized Trepunti had to became a touristic resource, to put food and knowledge into context complementing it with an all-round experience of Sicilian life.
Not to mention I have been always interested about Sicilian expats and the cultural fork that has taken place after 1860 (Italy’s birth-year) establishing new communities in places like North & South America, Australia and after the Second World War Germany, Belgium and France. Always very eager to confront with them, to keep alive the old link to Sicily, that connect them to us. Many by now second and third generation expats seek to connect back to their Sicilian roots.
Italian lifestyle is an aspiration for many, food is the foundation of Sicilian culture and with food agriculture. So that is what we did, we combined all of these in authentic experiences.
Through many obstacles and with relentless passion we paved the road for what we have become today.