Say BELLA-ZOO.

Quite a few people struggle to pronounce our name – but it’s easy when you know how.

Say Bella-zoo. It’s a nod to the French ‘Bel Azur’ and the Italian, ‘Bel Azzurro,’ and when people ask what does it mean, all we can tell them is it evokes blue skies of the terroir where our ingredients grow.

It’s understandable some people aren’t sure how to say it , we’ve only been the Belazu Ingredient Company for a comparatively short time.

We spent our first 23 years  supplying foodservice as the Fresh Olive Company, building up a great reputation initially, back in 1991, supplying just olives. But as George traversed the Mediterranean and bringing back so many more ingredients, the name Fresh Olive didn’t quite fit the bill any more.

As our collection of Mediterranean ingredients increased way beyond olives, olive oil and Balsamic vinegar and we got the chance to get some products into Waitrose and Sainsburys, we introduced a sub-brand, Belazu.

We still called ourselves Fresh Olive with our foodservice customers.

A few years later we decided it made sense to create combine the two brands, into the Belazu Ingredient Company. So we’re now one brand but everything else is the same.

We’re an independently owned, British company that’s proud that we make over 70% of our own products don’t only import finished products, we actually make things too – and export them.

“The Belazu Ingredient Company”, the final rebrand in the jigsaw, to help people know that we’re the same company, owned and run by the same three guys that have done since the early 2000s, including the two original co-founders.

Same dedication to service for the trade, same award-winning ingredients in the same buckets, bags, bottles and jars.

We’re a 150-strong team working at one site in North London, and enjoy long term relationships with artisan growers and producers all over the Med (who’ve gone on to be great friends at the same time as Mediterranean adventures uncover so many exciting flavours).

So from now on, call us the Belazu Ingredient Company.

And if you weren’t sure, it’s pronounced BELLA-ZOO.