“The changes and the recovery we are experiencing are all signs that a transition phase is underway that will lead us towards a new economic and social paradigm and food & beverage has all the credentials to be among the protagonists of this new era”. The thesis of Ivano Vacondio, president of Federalimentare (in the photo), is based on the numbers of an industrial sector that has resumed growth despite the pandemic and which celebrates the restart in Parma with the edition in the presence of Cibus, the international fair with industry news.
“If exports undoubtedly represent the flagship of the sector with double-digit expansion rates, such as to be able to record a step slightly higher than 10% in the final balance in 2021 and reach the share of 40 billion which, added to primary exports , will almost certainly bring total exports to the 50 billion mark, food production will also be no less and could close the year with an expansion rate of around 6.5% », explains Vacondio. The turnover, also driven by producer prices, could reach around 154 billion, with an increase of 8%. The products with guaranteed geographical indication are worth about 17 billion euros and account for over 11% of the turnover of the food industry.
Vacondio underlines the need to focus on free trade agreements: “We must continue and protect those already in place – such as the one with China or the one on Brexit – but also push ourselves towards emerging economies, where our products can conquer large market slices with very strong expansive thrusts, as the numbers show: according to the latest export data, food & beverage grew double-digit in Vietnam (+ 37.3%), Malaysia (+ 36.6%) and Korea (+ 52.4%) “. But “in the face of these great opportunities, some national and international threats loom over the food industry starting from sugar and plastic tax”. The first is “based on an opposite approach to the one that Italy has chosen to use in the European battles against nutritional policies that discriminate specific foods, in the belief that every food can be eaten in the right quantity. The second, however, far from solving the problem of recycling, would only increase consumer prices by 10% with peaks of up to 60% on products with low added value ». Balzelli that “if approved, they would fall on the shoulders of companies first and then on those of consumers, with the sole aim of raising cash from the state.”