The first son touched the mill, the second the donkey. The third had nothing but the cat: but he was a cat in boots. Silvia Stupino smiles: «Oh yes, it happened to me a little too». As in the fairytale, the lesser-regarded legacy has become a real treasure. At the beginning of the 2000s, Silvia took over the branch of the family business that produced bags for packaging food, mainly coffee. A branch then considered poor and less profitable than the core business of canned packaging, the most important food packaging. «In the family they didn’t give me many chances but in the end I did it. My dad used to tell me: “Who makes you do this? You are pregnant with your third daughter. Stay at home, be a mother ”». Today, Puss in Boots has become a company with forty people in production and eight women dealing with graphics and strategic decisions, from design to running the company, Rca flexible packaging. A success.
It wasn’t easy at all. Especially in the last decade. The financial crisis that arrived from America around 2010, the production block caused by the pandemic in 2020 and now the uncertainty linked to the effects of the war, have ended up making the navigation of the CAR bumpy. But also stimulating. Silvia tells it as an adventure: «One night they called us running. The printing house that physically produced the bags for us had gone upside down and went bankrupt. She couldn’t go on any longer. The bailiffs were about to arrive to seal the plants. Part of the machinery was ours. And it was strategic. The molds of the bags were the ones we made, with our graphics, the heart of our production. I took a truck in a hurry. We arrived in the dark, in time to load the material and take it to another printing house ». Unsure of the job of manager. To which were added the effects of the pandemic: «I must confess that the pandemic has not had a particularly negative impact on our production. Not only because with people forced into the home, food consumption has increased but also because in the meantime we had entered a new production sector, that of sachets for wet wipes. Where the margins are lower but the turnover is very high. With the consequence that, unlike others, we did not have the right to refreshments (and we got lost) ».
Rca packaging is an example of a small company that has been able to take advantage of its small size: “For this reason we are able to satisfy customers who ask for limited editions for bags”. The order of a large coffee company needs 3,000 meter long belts to produce all the sufficient bags. «Our machines – explains Stupino – are able to work with much shorter belts, of the order of hundreds of meters. But they offer a quality product in a short time. We happened to make the entire supply in a few days for a company that had to pack energy bars for a marathon. 200 meter tape for thirty thousand bars. A satisfaction to be able to do it quickly ».
How difficult was it for a woman to get to the top of a company, or rather to build one on her own? What difficulties did you encounter? An inevitable question because Silvia Stupino is not alone at the top of the company. In the executive offices he works closely with Sabrina (foreign relations), Giulia (Italy manager), Cristina (management and development), Stefania (standard materials), Valentina (suppliers), Bianca (administration) and Simona (graphic elaborations ). Why only women? «Well, I don’t define myself as a feminist, I didn’t make an ideological choice. In practice, having to choose collaborators who have the creativity necessary to conceive the graphics of bags for food and to market them in Italy and in the world, I find that women have a more open mind, more imaginative, a broader vision, 360 degrees “. A choice that has impressed. Today Silvia Stupino is at the top of Apid, the association that brings together women entrepreneurs from small and medium-sized companies in the Turin area.
Will the all-female company medal have a reverse? Silvia has no doubts: «We have had the biggest problems with smart working». For what reason? «Because mentalities are added to the difficulties that arise due to the lack of social relations between colleagues. In the family, the old patriarchal mentality is stronger than one can imagine. A smart working man closes himself in his room and works as if there was nothing around. Even today, a smart working woman still has to take care of the house and children. They are mentality hard to die ». Does this also happen in Silvia Stupino’s house? “Absolutely no. There are no such problems with my husband. Indeed, his help in the family was decisive in the difficult moments of the company. The problems are with previous generations ». Those of her father? «Those of relatives born in the 1940s. I continue to have an excellent relationship with my father even after he passed away. When I am alone I talk to him, I ask him for advice ». The last one? “I was forced to fire a no vax employee. A person with whom I have worked for many years. I was really tormented ». And the elderly relatives? «With those there is no way. I have a nearly ninety-year-old uncle who owns a farm. He produces wine but has not updated. He has two grandchildren who have studied oenology but he doesn’t even want to let them get close. With the result that today one is harvesting in Australia and the other is working in Bordeaux ». He will still have to pass water under the bridge. Silvia suggests an infallible method to understand when paternalism has finally abandoned our society: «It’s simple: when a mediocre woman reaches the top of companies, institutions, politics. Because as long as the good ones get to the top, it’s easy, they’re good. But when the mediocre ones arrive, it means that the prejudice is really over. After all, how many mediocre men are there today at the top? And nobody is surprised ».