The appeal of the European Union to guarantee the free movement of food and beverage, despite coronavirus, could ‘save’ 44.6 billion of Made in Italy F&B exports. Many Italian products have been blocked at the borders due to limits set by an increasing number of European countries. All this could change soon thanks to the guidelines presented by the EU Commission to member states on health-related border management measures in the context of the coronavirus crisis.
According to the Commission, “the free movement of goods is essential and this is particularly crucial for goods such as food supplies and medical and protective supplies.” Therefore, “control measures should not cause serious disruptions to the supply chains of essential services of general interest, nor to national economies and the EU economy as a whole.”
“It’s a decision we’ve been anxiously awaiting, after that unilateral decisions of many member states have undermined exports with serious damage, mainly to perishable food products,” said Italian farmers association Coldiretti’s president Ettore Prandini, referring to the difficulties on many borders – from Austria’s Brenner Pass to Slovenia.
ITALIAN F&B EXPORTS: TRENDS BY CATEGORY AND BY COUNTRY
Before the coronavirus crisis hit Italy and its agri-food sector, Italian food&wine export figures for 2019 showed excellent performances: 44.57 billion euros in turnover, growing by +5.3% compared to 2018.
All the Mediterranean diet products (with the sole exception of olive oil, whose exports fell by 8.2%) achieved very good results. Starting with the main driver of Italian exports. Despite the threats on international markets (from Brexit to US duties, so far averted at least for Italian bottles), wine has broken the record once again, reaching 6.43 billion export sales growing by +3.2%.
The best performance was achieved by the dairy sector, which exceeded an exports turnover of 3 billion euros growing by +11.2%. The results of pasta sales have also been very positive (2.6 billion, +7.2%), and the same can be said for the bakery sector (bakery, biscuits and pastries) which reached a turnover of 2.33 billion (+11.7%).
Good performances also for tomato preserves (1.66 billion, +5.5%) and cured meats which, despite soaring raw material prices, closed the year with 1.5 billion euros’ export sales (+1.6%).
ITALIAN FOOD TOP BUYERS
Among the main admirers of Made in Italy agri-food products we can find Germany (7.2 billion export sales, +0.8%), followed by France (4.9 billion, +4%). In third place comes the United States (4.6 billion euro, +11.2%), ahead of the UK (3.4 billion euro, +0.7%).
Great leap forward in Japan (now the fifth market with 1.8 billion and a jump of +65% in purchases, also thanks to the recent free trade agreement with the EU). Significant recovery also for Russia (591 million, +5.8%), and China (476 million, +8.6%).