Inflation falls, but prices in the food industry do not appear to be falling the same way. Indeed, now, with the crisis on the Red Sea, who knows what will happen. It is recent news that the cost of the most requested raw material in the days preceding Easter, cocoacontinues to increase and, as well as the supply chain, it is above all the consumers who notice this who choose the smaller chocolate eggs in front of the shelves to limit their spending.
Lavazza, coffee increases prices no
However, another product much loved by Italians is also reaching record prices: il coffee. In this regard, however, it must be said that the producers have chosen different policies so as not to have a strong impact on the end user. Lavazza, for example, was able to choose to limit price increases on productsthanks to the financial solidity of the Group which has allowed it to seize important market opportunities and also grow externally.
The challenges of 2024
Certainly, the ability to diversify, to look at the international market and to evaluate strategic and synergistic investments that can contribute to long-term development is a strong point in complex macroeconomic moments and Lavazza, like other competitors, has shown that it has the capacity. The challenges of 2023characterized above all by the increasing costs of raw coffee, in any case they were significant and for 2024, explained Antonio Baravalle, CEO of the Lavazza Group, we are working to address the current difficulties and anticipate a return to more favorable conditions.
To do this, Baravalle continues, Lavazza focuses on human capital, the primary resource for a sustainable and long-term development path and for this reason it will continue to invest in people to promote a positive, productive and inclusive working climate. And it must be said that, to demonstrate that these are not just words, in 2023 the Group actually carried out a salary review and the provision of production bonuses based on objectives to the employees of all Italian structures.
Gender equality and sustainability
Across the Gap Free program, then continued to promote diversity, equity and inclusion, another fundamental point in a functioning company. And, even in this case, the Group managed to obtain important certifications in the field of valorising diversity and promoting fairer opportunities for everyone. Among these is the recognition of the first level of EDGE certification (Edge Assess) in Italy, fundamental to support an objective and comparable internal analysis of gender equality in Italian offices, to which at the beginning of 2024, the Gender Equality Certification ex Uni PDR.
Not only inclusion, but also sustainability, integrating ESG principles into its business model, thanks to which in 2023 the first “Center for Circular Economy in Coffee”, a hub supported by the Lavazza Foundation together with a global network of partners, which aims to support and enhance the principles of the circular economy, accelerate the sustainable transitionee promote innovation in the world of coffee.
The Red Sea scares agri-food exports
A complex that unfortunately collides with a macroeconomic scenario where conflicts are added to conflicts. The latest in chronological order, the one on the Red Sea, as was said at the beginning, which alarmed not only Mister Lavazza, but the entire Made in Italy agri-food export sector in Asia which in 2023 reached a total value of almost 6 billion.
From the Suez Canal, in fact, pthey account for 16% of olive oil, 15% of products derived from cereal processing and 14% of processed tomatoes in Italian agri-food exports and pass through all imports whether cocoa or coffee. A big problem if everything stops: because it’s one thing to exploit the Suez Canal, it’s one thing to have to circumnavigate Africa and take on additional energy and freight costs, and it’s another thing to not be able to reach the routes towards Asia as it was done before.
