Their mission is to Track and Trace any product at any point in its existence, from the laboratories or workshops where it takes shape to the supermarket or pharmacy shelves. Nothing escapes the private eye of Antares, a knowledge multinational born from the laboratories of the University of Brescia. But there is one exception: the badge is not used to enter and exit the company headquarters. “There is no reason to put our employees under control” explains Emidio Zorzella, from Brescia “not only by birth but also by character”, a weakness for optoelectronics, as well as for music. But, above all, an attraction for the potential of artificial intelligence, shared with my friend and fellow student Massimo Bonardi from Monte Isola.
Two talents dedicated to research who, in 1998, obtained permission to use the university's laboratories for free in exchange for their contribution to a research program on the physics of materials. A history of economics based on knowledge rather than on capitals (which the two do not have) in 2007 when, in a small office in Castel Mella, near Brescia, with a customer portfolio of 4 million euros and only 18 employees, the activity of Antares Vision kicks off, today a multinational listed on the Star segment of the Milan Stock Exchange, with 27 branches and production facilities serving seventy countries. A rapidly growing company that is reaching the milestone of one thousand employees (100 more units a year, 60% graduates, 26% active in research and development). A global leader born "from a small laboratory of ideas - say the founders - Today we have become global leaders but our intentions are still guided by the same pioneering spirit of the past".
It all stems from a business idea: guaranteeing the integrity of a product and transparency in every step of the production and distribution chain through intelligent data management, a goal now within reach of consumers thanks to various tools, starting with smartphones. "The first customers - Zorzella explains - we found them in the pharmaceutical sector, for obvious reasons the sector most sensitive to regulations and attentive to counterfeiting" which, moreover, presents two favorable conditions for the affirmation of a local supplier: a strong industry, because from a manufacturing point of view Italy is the leader in Europe. No less important is the primacy in packaging, in which the groups of our house are unrivaled. The big break came in 2008 when Turkey, the first nation in the world, inaugurated a pharmaceutical Track & Trace system to combat counterfeiting. “A multinational – recalls Zorzella – started an ambitious project to equip five automatic lines and one manual in order to comply with Turkish legislation by the end of the year. We took up the challenge, developing and adapting a packer and cartoning machine in record time: six months!”.
It is the springboard for the small jewel from Brescia which does not hesitate to challenge the giant Siemens in the tender called by Sanofi. And David, as sometimes happens, beats Goliath. Jean Marc Bobée, managing director of Sanofi, will declare that he chose Antares Vision "for the commitment, passion and expertise combined with our incredible flexibility". The Brescia-based company thus projects itself into the global market: over the years, Johnson & Johnson, Merck and other global companies will be added to the 40 factories and over 400 lines scattered throughout the world. But you don't live on medicines alone. The technologies developed by Antares Vision, which offer the possibility of supplying the products of a forgery-proof identity card, adapt perfectly to food, beverages or cosmetics, the fields in which Antares, which in the meantime has grown financially (also thanks to Italian strategic support) and in technologies (the victory in the National Champion for innovation in 2014 ), intends today to put its know-how to good use.
Starting, above all, from the four-way alliance to counter the counterfeiting of Made in Italy products especially on international markets, thanks to the intelligent labels that will follow hams, cheeses and vegetables "from field to fork". This is why RurAll was born, a company owned with equal shares by Antares, Bf (listed agro-industrial group), Sdf (tractors) and Bluarancio, an Information Technology company leader in the creation and management of platforms for the Italian agricultural sector, operational arm of Coldiretti in Information and Communication Technology. “Today it is estimated that there are three tarot cards on the market for a true Made in Italy product. To the detriment of consumers” comments Zorzella.
Customers flock from all over the world, attracted by this fruit from the Brescia valleys, in transition from steel to the science of intelligent data collection, which every year welcomes high school boys (and girls) who they will develop their talents in the training center, open to customers and foreign subsidiaries (including the latest acquisitions in the United States). A center of excellence where, the founders repeat, “we like to dominate complexity through the analysis of changing and intricate data horizons. Through this fascinating mixture of disciplines, we work every day to protect products throughout the distribution chain. In any market”. The journey, they assure, has just begun.
