For centuries, the hunting and selling of truffles in Italy has remained largely unchanged. Hunters, known as “cavatori” (diggers), would traverse their secret forest paths with their truffle-hunting pigs. The animals would detect the scent of ripe truffles—variously described as woody, nutty, pungent, or garlicky—and unearth them. In recent decades, trained dogs have replaced pigs for the practical reason that dogs are less likely to devour the prized nuggets.

And what prizes they are! Truffles, whether black or the rarer white variety, are so valuable they are often referred to as “dirty diamonds.” Traditionally, cavatori sold their truffles locally, to restaurants or countryside markets, sometimes employing agents for export.

Today, truffles are becoming big business, especially in Umbria, the landlocked region at the heart of the Italian peninsula that is the epicenter of the industry. Even small truffles can be worth hundreds of euros; larger ones can fetch thousands.

Increasingly, the buyers are family-owned farming businesses with sales networks spanning the globe. Moreover, more truffles now come from specialized farms where they are cultivated, though still entirely natural.

“The truffle system is evolving,” says Ugo Giannantoni, an Umbrian agronomist who consults truffle farmers and is himself a partner in a truffle business. “Truffles have become a global market. For us Italians, truffles are an everyday food, but abroad, they are a luxury product.”

Prices are sky-high and rising, with wealthy Asians developing a taste for the underground fungi—much like their earlier passion for fine French and Italian wines—spurring truffle hunters, farmers, and regional agricultural ministries to produce and export more.

Umbria’s industry is eager to meet the demand. The late Hong Kong casino magnate Stanley Ho is believed to have paid the highest prices ever for truffles. In 2007, at a charity auction, he stunned the audience by bidding $330,000—the price of a Ferrari—for a 1.5-kilogram white truffle. Two years later, he paid the same amount for one weighing 1.3 kilograms.

There is no transparent market price for truffles like there is for olive oil or Florida orange juice. Prices vary widely depending on the truffle’s size and variety, the season, local supply, and the buyer. High-end restaurants often pay a premium of 50% or more for white truffles.

Other factors influencing prices include climate change, which is reducing Italy’s truffle yield, and competition from black-market Chinese truffles, whose origins may be unknown to buyers. The availability of highly trained truffle dogs, crucial for locating both wild and cultivated truffles, also plays a role: fewer dogs mean lower supply and higher prices. Truffle hunters can be fiercely competitive, with stories of dogs being poisoned by meatballs or tainted water.

In December, the U.S. website of Urbani Tartufi, Umbria’s oldest truffle distributor and exporter, listed prices for eight ounces (227 grams) of Alba white truffle, from Italy’s northwestern Piedmont region, at $3,890. A similar quantity of the more common Umbrian winter black truffle, which is in season from December to March, was priced at $1,095.

The most significant change in production over the past decade has been the rise of cultivated truffles—a rapidly growing industry in Umbria, which now boasts around 1,000 hectares of truffle farms. The term “farm” is somewhat misleading, as these resemble small, orderly forests rather than agricultural fields.

The process begins in a nursery, where thousands of saplings—oak, hazelnut, and hornbeam trees—are inoculated with truffle spores. The saplings remain in the nursery for two to four years before being transplanted onto privately owned plots of land. After five or six years, commercially valuable truffles can be harvested. The Umbrian region subsidizes about 60% of the cost of converting unused private land into truffle production plots.

Plenty can go wrong. Fencing around the plots, for instance, must be constantly repaired. “We need the fences because wild boars eat the truffles,” Giannantoni says. “They can consume €1,000 worth of truffles in three hours.”

The Globe and Mail visited a five-hectare truffle farm managed by Truffleland, a division of Urbani. Last year, it produced 100 kilograms of black truffles, worth around €80,000.

On a chilly December day, Riccardo Cesari, Truffleland’s general manager, found a surprisingly large, coal-black truffle by hand near the base of a tree—no dogs involved.

“We came here yesterday with the dogs, and they didn’t find this particular truffle, even though it was near the surface,” he said. “The truffle didn’t emit a scent, which means it wasn’t ripe.”

If cultivation represents the most significant change in the truffle industry’s harvesting practices, the rise of companies like Urbani marks the biggest commercial shift.

Urbani was founded in 1852 in Umbria by Costantino Urbani, who exported truffles to France, capitalizing on the French appetite for gourmet food. Germany and Switzerland soon joined the distribution list. The company is now run by the sixth generation of Urbanis. Its sleek headquarters in the countryside outside Spoleto includes a truffle cleaning, selection, and packaging center and a truffle museum, whose attractions include a thank-you letter signed in November 1968 by then U.S. President-elect Richard Nixon. He and his wife Pat had received a gift box of Urbani truffles, which, he wrote, were used for a “delicious” truffle chicken dish.

Andrea Pascolini, Urbani’s general manager and one of the few non-family members at the company’s helm, foresees continued expansion for Italy’s leading truffle business, whose products also include porcini mushrooms and a wide range of packaged goods such as truffle-flavored olive oil and butter. Sales total €80 million annually, primarily from exporting fresh truffles.

“The market continues to grow, with China, Singapore, and Taiwan being the newest markets,” Pascolini says. “This business has so much potential. Italian companies can’t compete on volume, but we can compete on quality. We’re exporting a piece of Italian luxury—the truffle—to the world.”

Urbani Tartufi’s white truffles are considered one of the rarest finds compared to their black counterparts and are described as “dirty diamonds.”

Baskets filled with autumn black truffles await sorting before being shipped worldwide.