Sovena was founded in the 1956, in Portugal, as a joint-venture of Companhia União Fabril (CUF), Macedo e Coelho and Sociedade Nacional de Sabões.
After the Carnation Revolution of 1974 and the subsequent Processo Revolucionário em Curso (PREC), it was nationalized.
Jorge de Mello, an heir of the disbanded CUF conglomerate, rebuilt the company through a new holding called Nutrinveste.
In 2004, the Nutrinveste Group sales turnover reached USD 840 million.
By this time, intensive olive groves with a high density planting, usually 500 to 750 trees per acre, modern irrigation systems, namely drop by drop, and also more rational fertilization were set up by the company in several locations across the world, mainly in Portugal, Spain, Morocco and Tunisia.