by Marco Principini
From cultivation in the field to processing in the plant, from packaging to transport: it is an innovation that runs along the entire production chain that of Conserve Italia, the food cooperative group of the Valfrutta, Cirio, Yoga, Derby Blue and Jolly Colombani brands engaged in an investment plan of 86.6 million euros to ferry the company along the digital, technological and ecological transition. We talk about it with the general manager Pier Paolo Rosetti, at the helm of the company from San Lazzaro di Savena (Bologna), which is preparing to close the 2023-24 financial year with 1.2 billion euros in turnover, with all the indexes growing.
Director, many people will have seen the new Cirio commercial with exceptional testimonials in recent weeks. Have you returned to communicating in an important way?
“The Cirio commercial aired in recent months on the main television channels has really hit the mark and we are receiving a lot of positive feedback. The choice of testimonial, Elio e le Storie Tese, has proven to be spot on; the message of the ‘transparent past’ as transparent is our supply chain is making an impact on consumers. 2024 is a very important year for the Group’s communication and marketing activities: in the spring there was the Valfrutta commercial and in the autumn it will be the turn of Yoga. We strongly support our main brands, emblems of the best Made in Italy”.
Brands that have a supply chain made up of thousands of producers behind them, given that you are an agricultural cooperative. How are you supporting your social base, concentrated above all in Emilia-Romagna?
“We are a consortium of agricultural cooperatives, so our mission is to valorise the fruit, legumes, cereals and tomatoes delivered by the producers to our factories. We are talking about around 600,000 tonnes of raw material per year, all strictly Italian, which we transform by creating and marketing the finished products. We support our social base first and foremost through the activity of our Agricultural Office, made up of a young and dynamic team of technicians who assist the agricultural companies together with the cooperatives’ technicians of certain quality results in production, we support and encourage investments, we ensure producers the possibility of being part of a large and solid supply chain that does not relocate abroad, but remains in the territory to redistribute wealth, given that every year we recognize around 100 million euros to our farmers. We are also accompanying them in the transitions.”
What does it refer to?
“To the digitalization of agriculture, for example. In partnership with xFarm Technologies and the University of Bologna, in recent months we have installed around 600 devices including sensors and weather huts in the over 700 hectares of the 200 Romagna farms that participate in our supply chain projects for planned industrial fruit plants. These are fruit growers tied to us by multi-year contracts, who grow fruit for industrial use, with dedicated varieties and systems specifically designed for the mechanization of the various phases, from thinning to harvesting. In their fields we have installed the largest agronomic monitoring network in Italy that allows farmers to have real-time information on the weather, the state of plant watering, soil humidity and other fundamental aspects. Supported by technology, which runs on smartphones with a special app, farmers can significantly reduce water consumption and the use of pesticides. But we don’t stop there, because we want to make them protagonists of sustainability at all levels, as is happening in the energy transition”.
Sustainability that, however, does not convince the agricultural world very much.
“Farmers ask to be accompanied in the transitions without impositions with impossible deadlines to respect. They are the first to love and respect the Planet. Making agriculture the protagonist of the ecological transition means, for example, enhancing the use of virtuous agronomic practices. How? By scientifically measuring the carbon sequestration carried out by plants, in our case orchards and vegetables, and arriving at certifying carbon credits to be exchanged in the European ETS market, providing economic recognition for farmers. This is what we are doing with the Control Carbon project promoted with the University of Genoa and the University of Milan”.
What does it mean for you to enhance the work of your members by bringing them to the market?
“It means creating products capable of meeting the needs of consumers present in our reference markets, starting from exports where our reference brand of Cirio tomatoes is constantly growing. On the domestic market this year we have launched important innovations in juices of fruit with Yoga, such as the new bottle for the family size and the Ace range in eco-sustainable cardboard packaging, while with Valfrutta we launched the Triangolini Morbidini, the fruit pulps designed for children with the typical characters of the famous collection present in the juices of fruit. These are all initiatives aimed at giving value to what our farmer members grow.”
