«We will be happy to deliver to Mercitalia many more tons of our products that now travel by train but the current railway system is not able to handle more goods. There are structural limitations: few trains and a reduced railway capacity, especially in some routes in southern Italy. We hope that the investments planned as part of the NRP will soon put us in a position to no longer leave volumes on the ground that cannot be transported by road ». Maurizio Gardini, president of Conserve Italia, chose the presentation of the group’s sustainability report to ask the government to privilege those interventions on logistics and mobility that could reduce the gap between rail and road “today still too biased in favor of the road” and reduce pollution. Last year 22 per cent of fruit juices, tomato and vegetable preserves produced by the Group traveled by train but in “in optimal conditions we could reach 35%”, explains Roberto Maffi, the group’s director of operations.
The current numbers, then. Of the 629 thousand tons handled by the group, over 114 thousand travel by train in Italy and another 21,300 are destined for abroad. “Every year we subtract 5530 trucks from the road – explains Gardini – saving 3000 certified tons of carbon dioxide”. With a more efficient network, however, Conserve Italia would be able to save 1,800 tons of carbon dioxide less by removing others from the road.
The PNRR, therefore, could make it possible to make the leap in quality as explained by Marco Gosso, CEO and general manager of Mercitalia logistics, a company of the FS group, “the expected economic development, both in our country and in Europe, in order to be environmentally sustainable it cannot be separated from a greater exploitation of the railway modality in the transport of goods. The Pnrr and the commitment of RFI and the FS Group in adapting the national railway network to European standards and connecting it effectively with Europe goes precisely in this direction “. But to “achieve this goal, new rules and incentives will also be necessary to convince the various economic actors to pursue economic development that is also climate compatible”.
The choice of rail transport, however, is only one of the items that contributes to the sustainability of Conserve Italia. “The use of renewable and self-produced energy with cogeneration plants has led to a reduction in emissions of 71,000 tons of CO2 in five years”, explains Pier Paolo Rosetti, director of the Group. And then over 250,000 tons of processing by-products have been recovered since 2016 “avoiding the creation of the same amount of waste”. The plastic (PET) saved in the last five years is over 3,500 tons. From his point of view, «Conserve Italia (which owns the brands Valfrutta, Cirio, Yoga, Derby Blue and Jolly Colombani, ed.). it is a 100% Italian cooperative chain and three times sustainable: from an economic, social and environmental point of view “.