The arrival of Kebhouze also in Turin, Genoa and Biella is yet another demonstration of how the desire and fame of kebabs is also rooted in the North West. An increasingly global and tricolor market. On the other hand, the decision of the influencer entrepreneur Gianluca Vacchi to invest in a chain of “Arab” sandwiches certifies how widespread is a dish that by now has nothing to envy to the Big Mac. Of course the Economist has not yet taken into consideration the idea of adding the Kebab index alongside the Big Mac Index as it did with the Tall Latte index, but this does not necessarily happen: especially if the individual restaurants are progressively replaced or joined by chains along the lines than that of Vacchi.
Also because we are facing a rapidly growing market which at European level is worth – according to the estimates of German producers – about 3.5 billion euros, but which has already revolutionized the eating habits of Italians. Starting from Germany. Because if the origin of the dish is certainly Turkish, it is from Berlin that the sandwiches with meat on the spit have conquered Europe: an idea born in 1972 by Kadir Nurman, a Turkish emigrant, realizing that Germany was a country of workers and that people ate quickly as they walked. “Initially he just put the meat in the bread, then he added the salad and then again the sauces,” says Tarkan Tasyumruk, the president of the German producers’ association. And in Berlin there is the famous Mustafa Kebab, an institution that has also conquered Elon Musk.
And again according to the association’s data, the 250 German companies producing kebab meat supply about 80% of the product in Europe. With important numbers. Starting with 60,000 employees up to an estimated 400 tons of meat consumed per day.
In Italy too, the market is constantly growing: a sector that is worth a few tens of millions of euros, but which escapes all official surveys. A few years ago the Milan Chamber of Commerce tried to make a census of the kiosks and only in the Lombard capital came to count 350, in the rest of Italy no one has tried to do such a job. Also because, as explained by the Chambers of Commerce, it is difficult to distinguish Kebabs from pizzerias, since they fall under the same Ateco code.
And on the other hand, along the Peninsula, the market, although in strong expansion, is still fragmented into dozens of small and very small businesses: a fragmentation that makes it impossible, or almost impossible, to calculate the aggregate figure. Skk, in the province of Treviso, founded by the Palestinian entrepreneur Naser Ghazal in 2001, was one of the country’s first franchises in the sector. But the fact remains that fast food restaurants open and close all the time also because the start-up costs are in the order of 10 thousand euros. More difficult, however, is to build a solid reality. Also because the game is all about quality.
A topic on which Devran Doner, an all-Italian meat producer in Vigevano, in the province of Pavia, also insisted a lot. A company founded in 2009 by two Turkish entrepreneurs who managed to invoice around ten million euros by supplying all of Northern Italy. An alternative project to the import of frozen products from Germany, but above all based on the tricolor supply chain. A model that probably also inspired the Kebabun served in the Eataly taverns. A Piedmontese meat-only kebab sandwich produced by the La Granda company, seasoned with whole Cervia salt and wrapped in a Romagna wheat piadina. After all, the owner of Eataly’s partner company, Sergio Capaldo, told how the idea came to him from the desire to maintain Ottoman traditions by rediscovering them with the quality of Piedmontese meat.
And perhaps also for this reason the most innovative city in Italy in terms of Kebab is Turin. The Piedmontese capital is a laboratory of experimentation and research where the rolled piadina meets the kitchens of other countries, becoming contaminated. One of the kings is Horas, in the heart of San Salvario, open almost all night. But in the meantime the little shops are multiplying where it is now possible to stuff the sandwich in any way and with any type of vegetable. Confirming that the contamination resulting from globalization is constantly growing and expanding.