Italy’s agri-food industry has increased its turnover to a new record level, topping 136 billion euro on the back of growing exports and improving domestic demand. Consumer analysts, in addition, are cautiously optimistic that exports will also hold reasonable levels this year and continue to sustain production to decent volumes.
Wine and confectionery products are fast growing segments (12% share on export), together with dairy (8.9%) and pasta (8.4%). What concerns the foreign markets is that the U.S. confirms their fundamental role for our economy, up 22.6%. Among European countries, Spain (+17.4%) and the UK (+8.6%) show the best results.
Professionals in the industry know very well: in order to mitigate the effects of the economic crisis on many sectors, in the last year international markets have represented a real oasis in the desert for several Italian food and beverage companies. So, it’s no surprise that during the last nine months of 2015, according to the data provided by the Italian food producers’ association, Federalimentare, Italian exports rose over 31 billion euro.