The publishing Group Food celebrated its first 25th birthday by a wide food summit that brought together leaders and top managers of the Italian food industry, to address shifting landscape and works towards building better tools. The inaugural event was hosted at Regio Theater in Parma. The summit had an inspirational line-up of speakers from across the private, public and social sectors on a range of issues likely to impact on the food industry to go international more. Italy is a point of reference worldwide for its gastronomy and premium food products. Despite this well-regarded reputation, Italy ranks only six in the list of European countries by export.
Export, digitalization and openness to new trends designed by millenial’s generation are all on the agenda, as across industry panel explored what it will take to unlock potential in the Italian food.
Some Italian industries, like Ferrero and Barilla, have been able to establish themselves on global scale. Giovanni Rana menages the 40% of fresh pasta market while Eataly (in New York) posted a sale volume of 70 million euro this year. Oscar Farinetti, founder of Eataly and former eco of the chain, said that the key success is focusing on Italian biodiversity. Italy leads products with a controlled origin label and only 0,3% of Italian products has rates of chemical residues over allowable limits.
Italian high quality food is the new challenge for Italian luxury, according to Renzo Rosso, the founder of Diesel fashion company. He said that to search of taste and beauty, typical of fashion sector, now has become an excellence factor in food industry also.
Talking about foreign investments and global players to boost export’s food sales, Mr. Paolo De Castro, deputy of the European parliament, stressed the full set of advantage offered by the TTIP trade agreement: “to unleash domestic potential, businesses in Europe needed to be unafraid of the Transatlantic partnership negotiated with United States because EU supply chain initiatives need more wide agri-food businesses and markets”. Promoting the fact that the Government has elaborated a strategic plan to increase exports to 50 billion euros in 2020, Luigi Scordamaglia, Federalimentare president, addressed the most important challenges Made in Italy products face on international markets: labeling requirements, common organizations in order to achieve greater scale, commercial barriers.
Global markets are radically transformed by technology which is not going to decide who wins, but is going to underpin the growth of many retailers. And it is expected that retail industry will embrace rapidly digital strategies. One of the panelists who focused on digital was AlixPartners. Francesco Leone and Marco Eccheli welcomed the opportunities that digital offered for greater teamwork across the food business community. But it will require, as stressed by the philosopher Umberto Galimberti, companies to make tough decisions and to renew their focus on ethics.
