Italian food means high quality export

Federalimentare, the main Italian organization of food industry, showed at Expo 2015 the insights of Food Made in Italy and the trend of Italian food farming products export.

According to Federealimentare, the value of Italian food export is increased of 83% between 2004 and 2014. Every year 1,2 billion persons buy almost an Italian food farming product and 750 billion persons are faithful customers.

If we analyze ten years of Italian export, we can see that in 2004 just two industries in ten exported abroad. Today, one in two industries produce also for abroad markets. The most interesting data is that in Germany the value of food farming export is 33% (one-third of total) and in Italy is just the 20%. Nevertheless, the Italian food exports have generated more added value: 24 billion euro versus 11 billion of Germany. The added value includes: salaries, profits, financial interests, taxes and the dissemination of the importance of food for the economic strategy of a country.

Where and What Italy is exporting more

Germany is the first destination for Italian food farming export, followed by France and USA, which is also the first no-European market with a growth of 6, 4% in the last year.

Compared with 2013, the demand of food made in Italy is increased also in the Middle Est and Eastern countries. The top ten includes countries as Taiwan, South Korea, Israel, Croatia, Singapore, Poland, Rep. Slovakia, and also China.

80% of Italian export is represented by the most famous brand and Dop or Igp products. Italian wines are at first place for sales with a value of 5.523 billion euro in 2014, followed by the confectionary, dairy industry and pasta products.

The nightmare of food fraud and Italian sounding

The positive trend of Italian food farming products export is still limited by the big problem of Italian sounding, which is growth of 180% during the last ten years. For more information about Italian sounding, read our last article about: What does Italian sounding means?

Made in Italy export is also damaged by the dimension of Italian industries: most of Italian food farming industries have a small dimension or are family run, so they are too much limited to invest abroad. Many Italian producers don’t have enough experience or economic possibilities to export their products worldwide. It’s only recently that Italian government authorities have begun to improve the protection of made in Italy and enhance organisms and resources.

Source: This is a free translation of L’italian food nell’export è ad alto valore aggiunto