Buonitalia spa is the steering committee of Italian agri-food promotion on the International markets. It was created in response to the need of simplifying and organizing the Italian promotion system of high-quality agri-food products, in order to avoid role overlapping in promotion activities, and to present our most out standing products to worldwide markets by means of marketing and communication.
Buonitalia is an agency controlled for its 80% by the Ministry of Agricultural, Food and Forestry Policies, and for the other 20% by the Italian Trade Commission and by the Italian Union of the Chambers of Commerce. Therefore, it represents the Italian Ministry of Agricultural, Food and Forestry Policies on foreign markets. Its main tasks are to coordinate all activities launched by the Consortiums for the protection of Italian products and to endorse the subjects involved in the promotion of the Italian agri-food system. So, our main task consists in being such a steering committee and in orientating all the activities carried out by different subjects on the International stage. We are determined to avoid role overlappings as well as mistakes such as those committed in past times. Actually, such role reversal definetly puzzles the subjects which should benefit from the promotion process, as well as foreign traders and consumers, who sometimes happen to take part in different yet almost simultaneous events, all claiming to be sponsored by Italy yet confilcting with one another. This has caused many unclear situations.
It is likely that the audience ends up feeling disoriented, because too many subjects are overlapping each other and claiming to be “The”authority. This leale ground for sly and dishonest people to slip in and get their place in the sun by taking advantage of the situation. As I said before, Buonitalia IS indeed the steering committee of all the subjects mentioned before. They are required by law to accept coordination by Buonitalia. This is Buonitalia’s role, and the activities I’m describing are decided by Minister Zaia.
The Canadian market is very interesting for the Italian agri-food products. I’d like to point out that it is the only market which has grown by the 10% in 2008. Italian high-quality products are in high demand in Canada. What happened was the involuntary effect of “Italian sounding”, a phenomenon related to the presence of a very big Italian community in Canada. Somebody actually benefited from this phenomenon but not necessarily on purpose. Anyway, nowadays taste is much more sophisticated, so there are many ways to teach foreign consumers to tell real-Italian-taste products from fake products with merely an Italian name. Surely, over the years it happened that Canadian authorities prevented Italian main brand products from entering the Canadian market –I’m talking about Parma ham, San Daniele and others. However, at the moment, market quotas have risen enough to allow new possibilities of agreement and to discuss new conditions. There is currently a renewed interest in this field from both sides, namely the Italian subjects and the Canadian market actors. So it is very likely that this situation is going to be reviewed with new terms and new conditions. Last December, Buonitalia presented the “Food Roots” project, a special project launched in Canada for the safeguard and promotion of Protected Designation Origin Products. We thereby addressed a message to the Canadian market, that is, we only certify real high-quality Italian products. We are dealing with the most important distribution chains and we are focusing on the best communication methods and considering also a cooperation with TV programmes and celebrities. Our goal is to reach the consumers through media such as television, in order to get in touch with the so-called “foodies”, food lovers who watch TV shows presented by famous local chefs, who will be our testimonials in our efforts to make people aware of the importance of quality and of Protected Origin Designation of Italian products. Our goal is to have special “gondola” exhibitors -as they are called by Minister Zaia- in the main department stores and supermarkets, where we would expose all the Italian fine quality products certified by Buonitalia. These are challenging objectives, and are not likely to be reached in the short run, but I believe we are on the right track for reaching them.
