History
Founded in 1954, the Cooperativa Agrícola de Moura e Barrancos emerged with the main mission of providing a competitive response to the extraction of olive oil from the olives produced by its founders.
To begin this process, a small press was purchased, which, over time, proved to be insufficient due to the growing number of new cooperators. As a result, it was necessary to expand by purchasing a new press with greater capacity.
In 1987, the Cooperative needed to increase its working capacity once again, making its third acquisition, this time from Sociedade dos Azeites de Moura, which at the time had a more modern mill with a milling capacity of around 230 tons of olives per day.
Subsequent investments transformed the Cooperative into the largest olive cooperative in the country, with the largest and most modern mill, with a daily milling capacity of 1,800 tons of olives.
This capacity allows for an average annual production of more than 6,000 tons of olives, from 2,200 hectares of olive groves, from 1,300 cooperators, transforming it into more than 7 million kilos of virgin olive oil each season.
Equipped with the latest technology, the mill is also prepared to avoid the emission of effluents.
In its other sections, the Cooperative sells cereal and oilseed products, as well as the inputs needed by its almost 4,000 members.
The strategic option of the Cooperativa Agrícola de Moura e Barrancos, well adjusted to the characteristics of the region in which it operates, will continue to focus on capitalizing on Mediterranean products, whose processing can provide competitive advantages of differentiation through quality and appreciation of their origin and genuineness, as is the case with Moura Olive Oil.
Members
The members of the Cooperativa Agrícola de Moura e Barrancos are both the base and the summit of this institution. The 2,200 hectares farmed by the more than 1,300 members range from century-old olive groves to groves installed with the most modern management systems, both on farms with a strong entrepreneurial nature and on purely family farms.
There were 45 founding members who, in 1954, started a project that is now a true pillar of the region's heritage, in terms of landscape, environment, economy and society, and which is a fundamental part of the definition of the Portuguese olive oil sector:
Joaquim Manuel Franco
Francisco Ramos Montes
Francisco Infante and Infante
José Maria Moita
João Varela Fonseca
José Godinho Cunha
António Farinho Valente
António Jerónimo António
Libânio Fernandes Gomes
Estevam Fialho Falardo
Francisco do Carmo Valente
André Maria Fernandes
António José Lebre Carapeto
Joaquim António Acabado
Fernando Pulido Garcia
Eugénio Barreto Martins Bento
Caeiro Virgílio Mendes January
Mário Jorge da Gama Pinto
José Alves Fernandes
Marcelino Fialho Gomes
Domingos Lopes Machado
José Joaquim da Silva
José Augusto Madeira Perfeito
Joaquim Fernandes Raposo
José Baptista Sardica
José Joaquim Lebre de Carvalho Ravasco
Francisco José Ventinhas
José Maria Camacho
Joaquim Miguel Valente Redondo
Joaquim António Matado Candeias
António Urbano J. C. Fialho Pinto
Mário dos Anjos Claro
João Marcos Ramalho
Carlos Alberto Raposo de Mendonça
Francisco Brás da Costa
Domingos Lopes Correia
Manuel Vasques Salgueiro
Joaquim Pires Cardoso
António Tomaz Marques F. dos Anjos
José dos Santos Jóia
José Torres Benites
Joaquim Nunes Caeiro
Francisco de Barros
Farmers' Guild of Moura and Barrancos
Interviews with members
Get to know the true foundations and values on which the Cooperativa Agrícola de Moura e Barrancos is based, through a series of interviews with members:
