The assembly of the Sicilian PGI Red Orange Consortium confirmed its trust in the work carried out by the president Gerardo Diana and the outgoing board of directors for the three-year period 2024-2027. The members of the Board of Directors (9 producers and 4 packagers) were in fact re-elected by the assembly by acclamation, thus effectively reconfirming the president as well.
“I am happy to be able to lead the consortium again for a full mandate and I am also happy to be able to do it together with a team with which we have worked in perfect harmony since I took office”.
President Diana served her first mandate as incoming president, starting in December 2021, replacing the resigning president Giovanni Selvaggi.
“I want to underline that it is the first time that a Board of Directors reaches the end of its mandate without resignations and changes and it is the first time in the history of the Sicilian PGI Red Orange Consortium that a president and board of directors are reconfirmed in almost all of the members. It is a certificate of esteem, for which I thank the assembly. A gesture of trust of which we must be proud and which we will repay by trying to do our job as best we can and with all the commitment it deserves”, added Diana.
After the report on the work carried out during the first mandate, the president illustrated to the assembly the guidelines for the protection, promotion and development action that the Sicilian PGI Red Orange Consortium intends to follow starting in the next few days.
“We must immediately work on three thematic tables. The first is the one on the problem of work. It is unthinkable to imagine facing the next citrus harvest campaign without staff. We need to see what other EU countries are doing, and take inspiration from them, which have much more advantageous conditions.
We will put forward proposals together with those who care about blood oranges, citrus growing and agriculture in general and we will submit them to the institutions,” said Diana.
“The other two tables will concern the necessary updating of the production specifications and the promotion of the product. When a member of the consortium processes Arancia Rossa PGI he must pay the utmost attention to quality. What distinguishes us is quality and we must focus on that to be increasingly recognized, appreciated and remunerated. When you are a member of a consortium you need team spirit, like when a club footballer goes to the national team and gives everything for his nation’s team”, urged the president. “We have done a lot in terms of promotion and advertising in recent years. We must do more and more and on this path trying to be increasingly smart, young and effective both on traditional media and on social networks”, said Diana. “Even in this field, each associated company will be able to give an active contribution and ideas and in this field too, unity of purpose can give us great results,” she concluded.
The elective assembly was well attended and also saw the interventions of the vice presidents Elena Albertini and Salvatore Scrofani, the past president Luca Ferlito and the member Giovanni La Via. The Board of Directors of the Consorzio Arancia Rossa di Sicilia PGI includes Gerado Diana Elena Albertini, Salvatore Scrofani, Giovanni Bua, Giovanni Crispi, Giuseppe Di Silvestro, Riccardo Di Stefano, Grazia Gugliotta, Placido Manganaro, Stefano Restuccia, Maria Paola Rizzo and Mario Tripoli and Vito Amantia. The latter is the new elected councilor and replaces councilor Maurizio Ialuna, a veteran of the CDA with three mandates, and no longer eligible by statute. Ialuna was thanked by the president and the Board of Directors for the work carried out during the previous mandates.
Immediately after the Shareholders’ Meeting, the first formal meeting of the newly elected Board of Directors took place in the consortium’s premises, which unanimously elected Gerardo Diana as President, Elena Albertini as deputy vice-president for producers and Salvatore Scrofani as vice-president for packers .
