There’s more room to grow

There’s more room to grow: Liguria faces future challenges in the food sector

In rcent years the food sector has been deeply changing, presenting crucial questions to the companies working in this sector. During last month of October, Ligurian players of the agri-food industry – thanks to Deloitte cooperation and under the patronage of the Chamber of Commerce of Genoa and trade associations – discussed the following topics: how to safeguard tradition and at the same time bring about innovation in a changing environment. New consumers’ trends, the use of technology, the development of innovative sales channels and the spreading of explosive communication means, like social media, determine the need for operators in the sector to review their productive processes, redefine their priorities and strategies remaining faithful to their distinctive factors: quality and tradition of the products.

A recent survey – carried out in 2018 for the Year of Italian Food on the semantic analysis platform Monitoring Emotion – revails that over 58,000 contents – articles, blogs and posts in Italian or in English – about Italian food have been published online and on traditional medias, confirming the interest in this sector at international level. Some trends make us reflect, like the ones concerning health and healthy food, representing over 42% of the total monitored contents, or the ones concerning organic products (20%) or the vegan diet (15%). Pesto (basil sauce) – a symbolic products in our territory that needs a peculiar production chain – is more cited than Sugo (tomato sauce) or Ragù (meat and tomato sauce) – 44% against 31.4% – emphasising the importance of our typical sauce in international debates about Italian food. Nor less important are the repercussions on the tourism business: the last research in Food Travel Monitor, the most important international study on this subject, highlights that 49% of global tourists chose their travel destinations in consideration of fine dining and drinking. The 93% of tourist have been chosing at least one typical agri-food experience in their holydays. The 52% of Millennials in the world claim to be “gastronomic tourists”, and of course this is reflected in their choises and the sharing of their experiences travel through smartphones and social medias.

I strongly believe that the relationship with our territory represents a fundamental and essential resource for Ligurian entrepreneurs to promote a reliable and well-structured growth. In a globally depersonalized environment, self-narration, conceived as a way to share our own traditions and experiences, is an important mean to attract investors and visitors and to strengthen our economy. There’s more room to grow, to communicate and to share, to express a lifestyle and an entrepreneurial style and taste.

This article was published in section 1 – Origins and trends in Liguria – within WHY LIGURIA. Beautiful and good. Ides for the renaissance. Deloitte, January 2019.