Who owns Rio Mare?
Rio Mare is owned by Bolton Group (Italy), which has owned the brand since 1965.[1]
This ownership is reported in official statements but has not yet been matched to a regulatory filing.
Evidence: Bolton Group — our brands, Bolton Group S.r.l. Last checked .
Key facts
- Current owner
- Bolton Group S.r.l. reported
- Owned since
- Owner HQ
- 🇮🇹 Italy, Milan
- Origin
- 🇮🇹 Italy
- Founded
- 1965
- Category
- Food › Meat, poultry & seafood › Fish & seafood
- Last verified
- · 1 sources
About Rio Mare
Rio Mare is the largest canned fish brand in Italy and in Europe, and the product that turned Bolton from a distributor into a manufacturer. Launched in 1965, it sold tuna — until then mostly bought fresh — in single-serving cans, which created a category rather than entering one. Its plant at Cermenate became the biggest tuna cannery in Europe, and the brand runs long-standing sustainability partnerships with WWF and Oxfam.
Ownership timeline of Rio Mare
- 1965 – present Bolton Group [1] reported
Where Rio Mare sits in Bolton Group
Controlling ownership as of . Brands grouped under the entity that owns them; large groups are collapsed.
Open the full Bolton Group ownership tree →
See the full Bolton Group brand portfolio (14) →
Other brands owned by Bolton Group
Bolton Group controls 14 brands on Brandtree, 4 of them in food.
Also in food
- Isabel (1887)
- Saupiquet (1877)
- Wild Planet (2004)
Other brands in fish & seafood, and who owns them
The 38 brands in fish & seafood on Brandtree belong to 16 owners. The largest is Bakkafrost, with 6; Bolton Group has 4.
| Brand | Owner | Owner based in |
|---|---|---|
| 18 Islands | Bakkafrost | 🇫🇴 Faroe Islands |
| Fisher Boy | High Liner Foods | 🇨🇦 Canada |
| La Monégasque | Unimer | 🇲🇦 Morocco |
| Ōra King | NZ King Salmon | 🇳🇿 New Zealand |
| Mushroom | QL Resources | 🇲🇾 Malaysia |
| Ducktrap River of Maine | Mowi | 🇳🇴 Norway |
| Coln Valley Smokery | PRFoods | 🇪🇪 Estonia |
| Nutaaq | Royal Greenland | 🇬🇱 Greenland |
About the owner: Bolton Group
Bolton Group is a privately held company headquartered in Milan, Italy, founded in 1949. Brandtree records 14 brands under its control.
Bolton is a family-owned Italian group that began in 1949 when Joseph Nissim founded Exportex to distribute Anglo-American brands in post-war Italy, turned itself into a manufacturer in the 1960s, and took the Bolton Group name in 1978. It now sells more than sixty brands across food, home care, adhesives, personal care and beauty, and reports a turnover of €3.5 billion for 2025. Canned fish is its largest business and its route into most foreign markets: Rio Mare in Italy, Saupiquet in France, Isabel in Spain and Latin America, Wild Planet in the United States. Marina Nissim chairs the group.
Bolton Group: full profile, brands and acquisition history →
🇮🇹 Rio Mare and other Italian brands
Brandtree records a controlling owner for 209 brands that began in Italy. 76 of them (36%) are now controlled by a company headquartered in another country; Rio Mare is not one of them.
- Academia Barilla — Barilla 🇮🇹
- Acquaviva — Vandemoortele 🇧🇪
- Alpenliebe — Perfetti Van Melle 🇳🇱
- Amalattea — Granarolo 🇮🇹
- Balconi — Valeo Foods 🇮🇪
- Bertagni — Ebro Foods 🇪🇸
Frequently asked questions
Who is the parent company of Rio Mare?
The parent company of Rio Mare is Bolton Group, a privately held company headquartered in Italy.
Is Rio Mare Italian?
Yes. Rio Mare originated in Italy in 1965 and its owner, Bolton Group, is also headquartered in Italy.
Since when has Bolton Group owned Rio Mare?
Bolton Group has owned Rio Mare since 1965.
Is Rio Mare still owned by Bolton Group?
Yes. As of 28 September 2026, Rio Mare is still owned by Bolton Group. The ownership record was last checked against primary sources on that date.
Sources (1) & corrections
Last verified . Every ownership fact above is backed by one of these primary documents. Numbers in brackets in the text refer to this list.
- [1] Bolton Group — our brands — Bolton Group S.r.l., Official document; retrieved 28 September 2026.
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