(Finance) – For seven out of ten Italian companies (69.2%) in the Food & Beverage sector, the most serious problem caused by the state of “Poli-Crisi”, the permanent crisis that the global economy has been experiencing for over 3 years, is energy inflation. The European House – Ambrosetti interviewed a sample of 500 companies in the sector with a survey presented at the 7th forum “The Roadmap of the future for Food&Beverage: what evolutions and what challenges for the coming years” organized in Bormio.
In the list of negative impacts in second place, the effects of the commodity inflation crisis (49.9%), and gradually the aftermath of the COVID-19 pandemic (23.0%) and, in line with the growth in raw material prices, the difficulty of procuring production inputs (22.2%). In last place we find, instead, the impact of damages related to drought (13.5% of companies) which is explained by the historical dependence on foreign raw materials of Italian companies. Despite these impacts, 1 in 3 companies said they maintained their strategic plan in this period of crisis.
To date, despite growing pressure on operating costs, nearly four out of ten firms (39.4%) say they have increased their consumer prices less than inflation has increased, and 11.6% have even been in able not to raise the price. “It’s the demonstration – he said Valerio DeMolli – Managing Partner & CEO, The European House – Ambrosetti – of the social role of companies in this context of difficulty also in terms of citizens’ purchasing power. However, by itself, the absorption of part of the weight of inflation by the operators in the supply chain is not sufficient: in fact, this contribution fits into a picture in which food consumption has been at a standstill for over a decade and with a drop of 3 .4% in the last year due to the moment of crisis, but not only. Italy is the country where the average annual wage has grown the least in the last 30 years among the USA, the Netherlands, Germany, the UK, France and Spain, and from 2021 to 2022 the average real wages further decreased by -3 ,1% thus contributing to a substantial immobility of purchasing power”.
As emerged from the analysis by The European House – Ambrosetti, thethe entire Italian agri-food chain supports around 30 macro-sectors, contributing to the creation of 16.4% of the national GDP. With 282 billion euros of added value, of which 64.1 direct, the contribution of agri-food to the Italian GDP is equal to 2.5 times the automotive sector of France and Spain combined. In 2022, the trade balance of the Italian agri-food chain returned, however, to negative with a balance of -2 billion Euros, after the first 3 years of solidity from 2019 to 2021. The international exposure of the agri-food chain is driven by a deficit agriculture in continuous deterioration, which amounts to -13.2 billion euros in 2022. In fact, due to agricultural dependence on foreign countries, the country has “lost” about 100 billion euros of GDP in the period 2010-2022. “Even 2023 could be a complex year, the recent flood in Emilia-Romagna hexacerbated the situation by placing increasing emphasis on the devastating impacts of climate change”.
“We gathered in Bormio – concluded De Molli – FrFor the seventh consecutive year, the top exponents of the business, distribution and institutional sectors who contribute to making Italian agri-food the flagship of Made in Italy in the world. Nutrition, sport and health represent the sector’s challenge for the coming years and the values on which we have built our debate. To continue to occupy a leadership position, concrete actions are needed, proposals for the relaunch of the sector in such a complex moment: from support to consumption, to increasing the average size of companies, to fighting Italian Sounding, to reducing dependency from abroad to the mitigation of the effects of climate change and new food education policies”.