During Sana 2023 trade show, at the sidelines of the debate about “Organic and free-from in the Carrefour Food Transition in Italy, abroad, and Horeca” we interviewed Carrefour Group Fresh Offer Director, Sylvain Nicolosi, to know something more about the supermarket chain’s commitment about Italian organic products.
In 2022, Carrefour Group’s sales of organic products amounted to €2.7 billions in value terms, 1 billion of which coming from Filiera Qualità range which is currently made of 600 products. In the same period, plant based products sales reached €300 millions.
Between Carrefour’s Filiera Qualità and Filiera Bio (140 organic products), about 25,000 producers are currently engaged, out of a total of 35,000.
CARREFOUR BETS ON ‘FILIERA’ PROJECTS
“The Carrefour group’s ‘Food Transition For All’ is a key strategy from here to 2026,” Sylvain Nicolosi told us. “It involves all the retailer’s offer, starting with organic, healthy, and sustainable products. In every country where we are present we have a commitment to develop over 8 billions sales of products, coming from sustainable agriculture and productions by 2026. This involves a clear strategy and goals about organic products, but also about one of our key assets in Carrefour which is the ‘Filiera Qualità’ range. It is a very strong collaboration program between Carrefour and food producers, and it aims to develop the know-how of a sustainable agri-food supply chain in every market.”
Talking about the organic, sustainable products trends within Carrefour Group, “since 2021 we have seen a sales’ erosion. However, from 2018 to 2021 we noticed an impressive increase of this segment. Sales grew double digit, 10 to 15 percent depending on the country involved. And we guess this trend will grow further in the coming years. The current organic products sales decrease seems to be related to inflation, as the decline is most pronounced in countries where food is most affected by rising prices. However, Carrefour is not going to stop pushing and developing organic and sustainable products. We will do this through strong relationships with producers, and by making these products more and more accessible to customers. We are working very much on our customers’ expectations about organic products. Currently, the three main expectations regard taste, origin, and price. So we can, and we will, give accessibility to fresh organic products to our customers by working together with our partners and manufacturers,” said Nicolosi.
The Italian food and beverage production is more and more important for Carrefour. “For us, it is a key offer,” Nicolosi said. “Not only in Italy, but also in France and in all the other European countries, where many people are willing to enjoy some high-quality Italian products. A year ago, a specialist from the Italian Carrefour fresh fruit and vegetable team has joined our purchasing structure in Spain, which is currently buying fruit and vegetables for all the European markets. Our goal is to enhance the development of Italian products. This is why we recently made an amazing campaign on Italian grapes, as well as on many other important Italian fresh seasonal products such as citrus, in all our European premises. We want to keep on pushing this policy, as we have great expectations about this kind of products and their possibility to meet the consumers needs.”
Carrefour Italia has been working on Filiera Qualità products, in all countries, for some years now. “What we like to do is to enhance and export the Italian know-how to all countries, to make everyone able to enjoy our base products. For example, the kind of Parmigiano Reggiano Pdo we chose for Filiera Qualità range is the Mountain Product (Parmigiano Reggiano Pdo – Prodotto di Montagna, etc.), which is characterized by a specific and excellent texture. Products like this make Filiera Qualità particularly recognizable for its high- quality, and we intend to continue on this path,” said Nicolosi.