RIMINI, Italy – Jochen Pinsker, Senior Vice President, Foodservice Europe of NPD Group, outlines, in a talk with Matteo Figura, Foodservice Italia Director of NPD Group, a map on which to find one’s way in the coming months, or perhaps years. It is the first important glance outside the border of the Italian market that arrives from Vision Plaza, the think tank of Sigep Exp wanted by Italian Exhibition Group on the digital platform from 15th to 17th March.
In Europe, over half the sector’s losses are due to the block on travel to work or school. This change has four factors: “Buying power, reduction in time and space, consumers’ perception and, lastly, changes in private life and work styles, smart working, closure of offices, reduction of travel for work.”
The scenario that emerges is up-and-down, says Pinsker. “In 2021, a turnover of 246 billion euros is forecast, not as positive as previous years, but better than 2020. As long as it’s Covid that sets the rules, we are obliged to stay at home, with therefore a push toward digitalization, home delivery and comfort food.”
Whereas, for after the pandemic, the NPD Group analyst foresees a new type of socialization, greater interest in sustainability, new opportunities in new locations. The key word will be the ease of access to food, starting with the variety, even away from home.
Artisan gelato, let’s start again from limited collections and correct prices
Knowing how to present one’s product, transforming sales methods and collaborating with gelato maker colleagues. The final aim: raising the average price of artisan gelato. This is the recipe of the talk show organized by Editrade broadcast from the Vision Plaza, the think tank of Sigep Exp wanted by Italian Exhibition Group on the digital platform for this 2021 edition 2021, while awaiting the live one on January 2022.
“During both the 2020 lockdown and in this period of restrictions, it was necessary to propose artisan gelato without being able to see the product. Take-away and delivery require a radical change of business strategies: from passive to active sales. In order to do this, gelato makers must learn to communicate and describe their products, like award-winning chefs do, aware of their value”, explained Franco Cesare Puglisi, journalist, publisher and CEO of Editrade. Stefano Giordani, master gelato maker from Maniago, talked about his experience, “Between 2020 and the beginning of 2021, we began to describe our gelato on social networks, matching the various flavours with products we already had on hand, chocolates, which became gadgets.
The solution for recovery is to communicate about the product we make and spoil clients more than ever.” Massimiliano Scotti, Master gelato maker and European gelato champion, launched his proposal to colleagues, “One idea could be to launch monthly capsules, with very unusual recherché flavours, perhaps with regional ingredients, such as for example malaga made with Amarone, taking the Veneto region to Piedmont, Lombardy to Campania, exchanging recipes and starting to raise the price of our products.”
In the pastry world technology makes professionals
“The importance of technology in the pastry world” is fundamental. It enables to become a true professional rather than a jack-of-all-trades. So said Maestro Iginio Massari, in a talk with Gino Fabbri. Two names that represent excellence in artisan pastry begin, for the Academy of Italian Master Pastry Chefs and for Sigep, the program of the “Sigep Lab”, a format in live streaming from the aula magna of CAST Alimenti in Brescia, conceived by Italian Exhibition Group for its Sigep Exp, on a digital platform from 15th to 17th March (access via the sigep.it site). CAST teacher Yuri Cestari, launches a provocation and sets the RoboQbo, created by Giuseppe Malavasi, to make custard. With a robot? Yes, and with 30 years’ experience. “The custard we saw has a unique smoothness that is difficult to achieve by hand.
What use are machines? They’re needed to improve men’s work. These machines seem to be the magic wands I dreamed of as a boy”, says Massari. “People are waiting for us with new products. This period mustn’t go to waste, but be used to improve our products with new proposals”, added Fabbri. And, replying to those who are sceptical about technology in the pastry world, Fabbri says, “In the 1800’s, if a colleague had had a machine, he’d have used it. If you’re a professional, you use it, otherwise you’re just a poet.”
