For the food sector, the legacy of the pandemic was the development of the e-commerce channel: in 2021, even with the lockdown exhausted, online sales continued to grow by 17%. According to the B2C eCommerce Observatory of the Politecnico di Milano, in collaboration with Netcomm, if in the last five years the average growth of online purchases was 22%, that of the food sector alone was 40%. Online grocery is now worth 1.62 billion euros: in 2019 alone, its value was 464 million.
To grow further, however, food e-commerce must solve some critical issues in logistics: from storage at the right temperatures to the need to deliver products within 24/48 hours from the order, up to the difficulties of managing small numbers, perhaps less than 10 thousand pieces per month. “Until a few years ago e-commerce was the prerogative of a few large groups – says Vito Perrone, founder and CEO of Yocabè, who assists food companies to land online – now, however, even small and medium-sized enterprises have landed on the Web, with their own sales portal: the challenge for them is to be able to offer an order fulfillment and shipping service comparable to that of Amazon or Zalando ».
Some of these companies have to face the problem of the cold chain: «For SMEs – says Perrone – the critical issues begin with the lack of operators, such as couriers and warehouses, used to managing sales on a scale. Furthermore, logistics costs significantly affect sellers’ margins. compared to a rather low average cost of products, it is not uncommon for shipping costs to erode the entire margin ».