Great success for the fifth edition of Food Summit, the food event of the year dedicated to the Italian food & beverage business community. The conference, organized last Tuesday by Food publishing group, focused on the theme ‘Value Alliances – Winning Partnerships in Food & Beverage’. Staged in the setting of Teatro Regio in Parma, it was attended by over 250 representatives of institutions, top managers and entrepreneurs from the leading companies of the F&B sector, leading players of the world of finance, and buyers from international chains.
MARKET SCENARIOS
Gregorio De Felice, Head of Research & Chief Economist of Intesa San Paolo, presented the market scenario highlighting the growth of Italian food exports, which in 2018 rose to over 34 billion euros. Italian food sector’s export sales could rise further thanks to synergies and partnerships with international operators. Marco Eccheli, Director of Enterprise Improvement at Alix Partners, insisted on strategic alliances at international level as a path for innovation involving the entire value chain: from product and process innovation, to distribution and marketing.
SOCIAL SUSTAINABILITY 4.0
Barilla group’s Vice-President Paolo Barilla and Ettore Prandini, Coldiretti’s President, talked about supply chain alliances. Vincenzo Boccia, President of Confindustria, and Enrico Zoppas, President of San Benedetto group, discussed sustainability models as a winning path to promote growth and development. The Manifesto for Social Sustainability 4.0, recently launched by Confindustria, goes in this direction.
CASE HISTORIES AT FOOD SUMMIT 2019
Carlo Mocci, EU Director Prime Now & Fresh of Amazon, and Gianpietro Corbari, General Manager of Pam Panorama illustrated their case history. This is an alliance between physical and virtual retail, for a shopping experience keeping up with consumer trends evolution. The last round table involved Carlo Maria Ferro, President of ICE – Italian Trade Agency, and Paolo De Castro, Vice President of the Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development of the European Parliament, who stressed the importance of cooperation between public and private sectors to push Italy’s economy. Without forgetting the added value of partnerships to be developed with international retailers, as highlighted by Wakefern, H.E.B., and Ocado e-commerce platform case histories. This was followed by the Talent Award ceremony for the best project of the Degree Course in Trade and Consumer Marketing at the University of Parma. The Italian renown philosopher Umberto Galimberti concluded the event with an inspirational speech.