It kicks off today, November 13 in Milan, the “Business food marathon”, two days full of business meetings organized by Assocamerestero – the Association which includes the 78 Italian Chambers of Commerce Abroad (CCIE), private, foreign and market entrepreneurial entities, and Unioncamere – and Promos, the Special Company of the Chamber of Commerce of Milan, Monza Brianza and Lodi for international activities.
At the meetings – which are held in Palazzo Giureconsulti in Piazza Mercanti at the corner with Piazza Duomo – over 100 Italian companies in the food & beverage sector participate – coming from all the Lombard provinces but also from other Italian regions (Liguria, Abruzzo, Piedmont, Trentino, Friuli, up to the South, with Calabria, Campania, Puglia and Sardinia) – who meet the 16 selected buyers by the Italian Chambers of Commerce abroad of Germany, France, UK, Spain, Switzerland, the Netherlands, Belgium and Luxembourg.
The event is part of the wider campaign “The Extraordinary Italian Taste”, promoted and financed by the Ministry of Economic Development and by the ICE Agency, and aimed at promoting greater dissemination and knowledge of authentically Italian products, with the aim of helping foreign consumers to distinguish them from those italian sounding for a more informed purchase.
“The importance of the European markets for Italian companies is confirmed not only by the always substantial shares of our exports to these countries, but also by the large number of European companies associated with the CCIE, which represent around 30% of the more than 18.000 companies associated with the Italian chamber system abroad. The True Italian Taste project also intends to encourage the development of initiatives aimed at consolidating the entry of Italian companies into new market segments” declares Gian Domenico Auricchio, President of Assocamerestero.?
“This is an important system initiative, developed together with Assocamerestero, with the aim of promoting concrete business opportunities for Italian companies in a sector, that of food and beverages, whose products are recognized throughout the world as excellence of Made in Italy”, explains Carlo Edoardo Valli, President of Promos, a special company of the Chamber of Commerce of Milan, Monza Brianza and Lodi for internationalisation.
In order to have some terms of comparison, it is important to know that 4 billion euros is the value of trade in food and drink products between Lombardy and Germany, France, the UK, Spain, Switzerland, the Netherlands, Belgium and Luxembourg in the first six months of the 2017 (processing of the Chamber of Commerce of Milan, Monza Brianza and Lodi on Istat data for the second quarter of 2017 and 2016).
This is 1,6 billion in exports (equal to 20% of the Italian total) and 2,4 billion in imports (30% of the national total). More specifically, Milan with 291 million in exports and 809 in imports ranks first, followed by Mantua and Bergamo for exports (about 200 million) and Lodi (354 million) and Brescia (237 million) for imports.
The most important market for Lombardy food products is France, which absorbed 403 million euros of food and drink products made in Lombardy in six months, followed by Germany (318 million) and the United Kingdom (240 million), but in six months above all exports to Luxembourg (+16,7%) and the Netherlands (+13,1%) recorded the greatest growth.
At the product level, cheeses are the protagonists of Lombard exports towards these European markets, with 369 million euros reached in six months, followed by various products such as coffee, chocolate and condiments (about 230 million), beverages (187 million) and cured meats and other meat-based products (181 million).
Several specializations in exports from the Lombardy provinces: meat-based products for Lecco (29 million euros out of 74 million of exports that go from this area to these eight European countries) and Sondrio (8,5 million out of 24), processed and preserved fish for Como (21 million out of 81), cheeses for Lodi (111 million out of 150), Mantua (72 million out of 199), Cremona (66 million out of 148), Brescia (42 million out of 142), grain processing products for Pavia (55 million out of 97) , bakery products for Milan (72 million out of 291), mixed products such as coffee, chocolate and spices for Varese (40 million out of 127) and Monza (13 million out of 34) and beverages for Bergamo (56 million out of 192).
Nationally Italian food trade with the reference countries (Germany, France, UK, Spain, Switzerland, the Netherlands, Belgium and Luxembourg) amounted to 16 billion in the first six months of 2017 of which 7,8 billion in exports and 8 billion in imports. The top regions for exports are Lombardy (1,6 billion), Emilia Romagna and Veneto (1,3 billion each) and Piedmont (1,2 billion); for import Lombardy (2,4 billion), Veneto (1,3 billion), Emilia Romagna (about 1 billion) and Tuscany (588 million). In detail, 2,4 billion exports went to Germany, 1,8 billion to France, 1,4 billion to the United Kingdom, 584 million to Spain, 572 million to Switzerland, 534 million to the Netherlands, 468 million to Belgium and 38 million in Luxembourg.
