Thirty-five thousand sushi boxes a day
It is the production capacity of the EatHappy group in Italy. The famous Japanese dish is packaged in a factory in the province of Bologna and departs in real time for every corner of the country, reaching not only 53 Eat Happy corners and 600 Wakame windows, but also this brand of the group. EatHappy group is a rapidly expanding reality: born in Germany, it is today a European company with over 4,000 employees, more than 1,500 points of sale and 1,850 shop windows. And strong growth ambitions, as he explains to Verità & Affari Andrea Calistriceo & managing mirector Italy, France and Holland of Eat Happy Group, a company specializing in Asian cuisine. Thanks also to the growing passion of Italians for sushi, increasingly present on the table even during the Christmas holidays.
Andrea Calistri, CEO Eat Happy Group Italy, France Netherlands
How did this project come about, which manages to take off even in a country with a traditional cuisine like Italy?
EatHappy Group was born in 2013 in Cologne, Germany, and immediately presented itself as a very innovative multinational reality. Present with our corners in over 1,750 supermarket points throughout Europe, and as many shop windows, EatHappy Group offers two specific business models, a new shop-in-shop concept for sushi and Asian snacks with ultra-fresh sushi and with centralized production centers they produce sushi for our branded vertical display cases in supermarkets and hypermarkets.
Our role is to help make specialties such as sushi available to everyone, which often remain confined to specific consumption areas such as restaurants. Our goal is to bring sushi to the table every day and I can say, with a touch of satisfaction,
that we find an ever increasing appreciation. Proof of this is our presence on the table in one of the most sacred moments of the culinary tradition, the Christmas Eve dinner. In fact, in those days of the year there are very strong peaks in sales throughout the country.
How long has the company been on the Italian market? And above all, has sushi found easy ground in the supermarkets of our country?
The group arrived in Italy at the end of 2018 and, since then, we have grown double-digit every year to become one of the leaders in the sector. The reception of the market deserves a more in-depth reasoning. For years the world of sushi and Asian cuisine in general has experienced a strong expansion in the country. Today they are in a phase of physiological slowdown dictated by the current economic context. Despite this, EatHappy Group is growing by double digits. Why? Because our product, our recipes and our raw materials are designed to meet the needs of Italian taste. To clarify, ours is a sushi that speaks Italian rather than Japanese.
The clearest example is that of rice: we use a quality Made in Italy rice, Selenio, grown in Piedmont. We use cutting-edge technologies to treat it, from cooking to cooling, in order to preserve its organoleptic qualities and make the most of the
manual component of our sushi-chefs. This particular attention to quality allows us to be distinctive in our offer and reach the most diverse palates. In fact, there is also a strong appreciation in areas where the penetration of Asian cuisine is more limited: Puglia, for example.
You develop corners inside supermarkets. Who are your most important partners in large-scale distribution?
We collaborate with almost all the main players in large-scale distribution in Italy. Our partners include brands such as: Carrefour, Conad, Crai, Unes, Il Gigante, Despar, Bennet, Iperal and Eurospin, Banco Fresco and Tigros, Pam and Despar. We also collaborate with other players outside large-scale distribution, for example we are official suppliers of sushi for Cortilia and Compass Group.
What are the main difficulties on the Italian market?
As I said, our sushi was created to meet the taste needs of the area. Not so much difficulty then, as real opportunities. For example, we are encouraged to always pay great attention to the quality of the raw materials we use, always trying to improve our standards. At the same time, we must pay close attention to the issue of sustainability. For example, our bowl suppliers recently acquired the FSC certificate for our Pokè and Donburi. These packagings are made of cellulose pulp, a compostable material, thus protecting forest management and the traceability of derived products. The packaging of the Eat Happy Group sushi is instead made of R-PET, a 100% recycled polymer.
Do you also have local suppliers? If yes, what type and with what impact on the local economy?
Yes, as I anticipated, the rice we use for our recipes is Italian, Selenium quality, grown in Piedmont. Every year we buy about 400 tons of rice from our suppliers and we are in the process of creating sushi boxes with local ingredients (e.g. fregola, pecorino cream, local fish) in some regions such as Sardinia and Puglia to support the economy of the territory and
bring local customers closer to our product.
Even in Italy, therefore, sushi is very popular. But what is the weight of our country compared to the other states in which your group is present?
At the moment, Italy represents the third largest market for the group, after Germany and Austria. The broad growth prospects, however, allow us to aim to overtake Austria within a few years, thus becoming the second most important market. The group has ambitious goals: 2022 closed with an increase in turnover of +14%, reaching 27.5 million euros.
The goal is to reach 50 million in 2025.