Farinetti from guru to fiasco. The Centro Agro Alimentare di Bologna, where Eataly is based, receives a 2 million euro loan from the Municipality led by the Democratic Party. “You are the Coop…” and therefore you lend…
Oscar Farinetti television star, Oscar Farinetti possible Minister of Agriculture, Oscar Farinetti guru of Italian food culture. Do you remember every night on tv? When he said: “The great leap from being good to being just is the combination with cleverness. If we manage to be clever and courageous, we become just”. And even some saint in heaven helps!
It would have been enough to concentrate Italian agri-food excellence in a global showcase to make it a success. But as we had already explained at the time of planning, FICO was not born to truly concentrate the excellence of the Belpaese. And so it turned into a flop with millions of euros burned, few visitors, investors in trouble and the shadow of real estate speculation.
In these hours the Municipality of Bologna has decided to pay 2 million euros at Caab, the Centro Agro Alimentare in Bologna, where Farinetti’s work and the Coop supermarkets are located. The “creature” has no liquidity.
But beware it’s just a loan, at least as far as it says on the card. A disbursement to a subsidiary would not be legitimate. The difficulties have profoundly affected the great project of organic and gourmet food, moreover alongside an incinerator, which promised millions of tourists, turnover and thousands of jobs.
In the resolution just approved by the council of the mayor of Bologna, Matteo Lepore (Pd), former territorial manager for Legacoop (next week the resolution will pass to the City Council), reads: “Need to deal with the repayment of existing loans, taken out in order to pay off the historic debt to the Municipality of Bologna in advance (in particular, the 2023 financial year is particularly burdened by the repayment plan, as installments of 2.5 million are envisaged, in addition to the repayment of 1 million of the hot money loan) and on the other hand to the consequences of the COVID-19 pandemic which affected negatively on the profitability of the PAI Fund Section A, with consequent non-distribution of dividends by the fund itself and difficulties in carrying out the sale of the shares in the fund held by CAAB (income that the company expected to use to repay existing loans); the negative performance of the PAI Fund also led to the termination of an advertising contract for the entire CAAB/FICO area and delays in payments by Prelios of condominium charges and rental lease of the pavement accesses; following the crisis, starting from 2020, CAAB also received some cancellations of concession contracts and leases and has experienced a delay in the development of internationalization projects, but the company expects to return to full occupancy of the market spaces in 2023″.
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