Panic and fear are among biggest dangers to our societies. They put to risk our humanity by awakening primal survival instincts in all of us. Our integrity and solidarity are being challenged and brought down to lining up and even fighting for basic cans of food and toilet paper…
No, this doesn’t mean to undermine the risks in front of us! By no means not taking all necessary measures and protecting ourselves, our families and our neighbors!
What it means is that this will go away sooner or later and then… we need to continue! There is sunshine after the rain!
Human civilization has overcome any kinds of disasters and wars. We will overcome this one too. However more important is what we leave behind us?
Do we leave legacy of integrity and mutual support or international alienation and disintegration?
Are we going to leave the world behind us a worse place than we found it?
Critical situations just reveal who we really are as individuals, as societies and as values we really believe in.
This is a filter for the public hypocrisy we are so much used to.
Ironically the birthplace of Western civilization we are so proud of is among the countries in the world worst hit by the current pandemic.- Italy!
This is the moment for all of us to show our solidarity with Italian people and culture that is part of our self-definition as modern civilization!
We at Walmart Canada are determined to continue our extremely exciting project with our friends from COOP Italia and all of their small and medium sized vendor partners!
During last one week of disastrous news we barely spoke about political developments and the news. Not because we are ignorant or because we don’t care! No! – Just because we were busy securing inventories and planning the future! The future of handling tomorrow in the best possible way for our customers, but also the future beyond tomorrow!
Italian cuisine is integral part of Italian and world cultural legacy. It has survived 2 world wars, political regimes and various turbulences. It migrated to new continents and became part of building their sub-cultures. There is little Italy in almost every metropole in the world. Anybody thinks some kind of virus can change this…!
And to make sure there is no misunderstanding when saying we at Walmart Canada just continued working on our development plan with COOP Italia: – Yes, we do continue working very confidently that we provide highest hygiene and quality standards of our imports and safest product to our customers. As long as allowed by the political framework – we are in position to provide some of most demanding quality assurance processes at every stage of production and export. Just because we speak about export platform managed by one of the largest food organizations in Italy with more than a century old food expertise.
Actually current critical environment is a great opportunity for our project to showcase to the world it’s capabilities and resourcefulness!
This is the unbeatable model that can bring authentic Italian Food to a totally different level on the global scene, regardless of disruptions or sociopolitical developments!
We will be stronger together!
Ivo Petroff