Worrying but predictable are the final results of one of the most important and most advanced sectors of our country, that of food technologies. Thursday 8 October SOUL, the Federation of National Associations of the Mechanical Industry will announce together with the data processed for the production and export of the entire Italian mechanical sector. The ANIMA Research Department has detected a strongly negative trend for Assofoodtech (professional equipment for hospitality) and Fiac (household), with 13 percent decline expected for full-year 2020, a turnover that drops from 5,26 billion euros in 2019 to 4,55 this year.
A decline that is particularly marked for housewares (-16,9 per cent, from 902 million euros in 2019 to 750 in 2020) mainly due to the fact that heavily exporting Italian companies in this sector remained closed due to the lockdown, and thus they were unable to satisfy foreign demand of the made in Italy of the table, the kitchen and gifts. Of those 152 million euros that are missing from the turnover, in fact, exports that have collapsed by 110 million euros weigh the most. Actually, sales of housewares on the domestic market will record a less severe drop in demand at the end of the year than the double-digit one of some professional sectors and they are already recovering.
The problem is that there is still no demand for hospitality (restaurants, hotels, bars). The lockdown, on the other hand, recorded increases concentrated in the first few months of the year in household purchases of household goods (Istat data: from 6 to 7 percent) and small appliances. As regards the turnover of professional equipment, the 2020 forecasts are particularly heavy for machines and ovens for bakery and for espresso machines (respectively -16 per cent and -14,1 per cent) following, of course, the closures of the Ho.Re.Ca. on all continents.
“Now it is necessary to give concrete help to companies – declares Andrea Salati Chiodini, president of Assofoodtech – in recent months companies have suffered large losses in turnover, helping them doesn't mean putting off payments for two months, but act decisively on tax relief and concessions, immediate and not deferred in the future, in order to be able to resist next year as well. Considering an average drop of -13,5% - continues Andrea Salati Chiodini - which for some Assofoodtec sectors has even exceeded -20% (such as machines and systems for mills, feed mills and silos), it is necessary to help companies and families ; many are still waiting for funding and the Cig which, in many cases, has been brought forward by companies precisely to help their collaborators and families to "survive".
“This social aid, replacing the state, has done nothing but put companies even more in a liquidity crisis. With the fear of a second lockdown, companies do not know how to behave. What needs to be done? Putting material in stock, to be ready for a possible restart (then paying the related taxes) not knowing what will happen, making a bet on the future? The State must understand that engineering companies are fundamental for the Italian economy, especially for exports”, concluded the president.
In the meantime, the large international distributors, for some time "greedy" of the extraordinary attraction exercised in all markets by our housewares for their industrial quality and design, are doing their shopping very discreetly; after the acquisition, at the end of 2019, of the prestigious Alluflon, a group from the Marche region that produces high-end cookware with historic brands such as Currency, from Brilliant Concept Development of Hong Kong, earlier this year, another Chinese giant also from Hong Kong pulled off a big coup. It's about the Meyer Manufacturing Co.Ltd., manufacturer and distributor of cookware, which takes control of , also this Marche region.
The two medium-sized companies, protagonists of the best Made in Italy tableware for decades, with super-award-winning innovations and patents all over the world, sold in the most beautiful showrooms, were affected even before the Covid crisis, the unfair competition from international distributors favored by a jagged and very backward distribution and that only looks at the price Thus the two Italian jewels will give prestige above all to the two big names in Hong Kong which, as is the case with Chinese consumer electronics and household appliances companies, considered of a cheap level, have hoarded high quality brands , possibly Italian, to attack the medium-high and high end of the world market. Precisely that band where the made in Italy is still the n.1.
