THE “BRAND” FOR GELATO PARLOURS WORLDWIDE
LAUNCHED AT RIMINI
Announced at Rimini Fiera’s Sigep the “Gelateria Italiana” project
for the certification of businesses proposing the know how of gelato’s homeland,
as happens with restaurants
The Gelateria Italiana project was born from the work group organized last summer by the Italian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, at which participants included the Ministry for Agricultural, Food and Forestry Policies, Assocamerestero, Isnart, and SIGEP/Rimini Fiera.
Gelateria Italiana will be the acknowledgment used to highlight Italian gelato parlours abroad, so that they can be recognized by clients for their qualified certified products.
As well as the certification, the initiative also has the aim of providing trade member elements for improvement and encouraging collaboration between the gelato sector’s stakeholders, as well as creating new opportunities for promotion.
In recent years an increasing number of entrepreneurs in the artisan gelato chain have launched businesses abroad, putting the accent precisely on Italy’s acknowledged quality and leading role in this field. A process of internationalization of enterprises in various sectors, from food & beverage to furniture and technology, through to the export of know how, with professionals travelling the world spreading Italian knowledge on artisan gelato.
The “Gelateria Italiana” project has been realized by:
Rimini Fiera’s SIGEP, the international expo that for 36 years has been the world leader for the artisan gelato chain via Sistema SIGEP, the platform for internationalization of the gelato sector;
IS.NA.R.T., Istituto Nazionale Ricerche Turistiche (national tourist research institute), working with Unioncamere on the “Ospitalità Italiana” certification assigned in Italy to over 6,700 tourist facilities and in the world to over 1,700 Italian restaurants in 60 foreign countries.
The sector’s figures and the rapid internationalization process seen at SIGEP confirm the importance of an initiative with this aim, to support the process under way for some time, which, thanks to the commitment of the Ministries involved, now has an official systematic profile.
SIGEP itself confirms this trend: one visitor out of five is from abroad (35,000 at the 2014 edition) and the trend is growing this year too, with visitors from 140 countries. 34 delegations of foreign buyers are awaited at the 2015 edition.
The Sistema SIGEP platform has been active for a year, supporting enterprises’ internationalization. Since January 2014, the web site www.sistemasigep.com has received 12,000 visits and had 8,000 users. In less than a year, over 100 countries have been mapped by Sistema SIGEP to give solutions for individual entrepreneurs and companies. The most requested solutions were: finding foreign locations in city centres and busy areas; information on the procedure for starting up a business and the identification of Italian suppliers abroad.
Sistema SIGEP has already supported dozens of requests for internationalization in nations such as the United States, Brazil, Russia, Spain, Switzerland, Serbia, Germany, New Zealand, Australia, South Africa, England, etc. providing specific information on the nations, identifying Italian suppliers and locations.
In 2013 gelato exports totalled 207.5 million euros, 4% more than 2008. In the first 9 months of 2014 there was an increase of 11.2% compared with the first 9 months of 2013. There was also a positive result for the gelato’s trade balance: +86.6 million euros in 2013.
Again in 2013, the countries to which the largest amount of gelato was exported were France (45.9 million euros; 22.1% of total gelato exports), Germany (42 million euros; 20.3%), Spain (26 million euros; 12.5%), United Kingdom (13.3 million euros; 6.4%), Netherlands (10.7 million euros; 5.2%) and United States (7.3 million euros; 3.5%). There were particular peaks in the five-year period from 2008 to 2013 in Brazil, Malaysia, Philippines, Estonia, Bulgaria and Singapore.
(Source: Unioncamere)