Italian fresh produce marketer Valfrutta Fresco has named long-serving commercial and marketing director Stefano Soli as its new general director. He takes over from Gianni Amidei, who led the company from its inception as an off-shoot of Apo Conerpo business unit Alegra in 2008.
Valfrutta was established with the clear aim of adding value to best of Alegra’s fruit and vegetables by developing a new premium branding strategy, all the while ensuring that those products remained in line with consumer demand.
Together with Amidei, Soli has overseen rapid growth in sales of its range of high-quality, branded fresh fruit and vegetables.
“For distributors, Valfrutta is an important supplier of high-quality fruit and vegetables and a partner that is able to offer innovative ideas to increase sales and better satisfy consumers,” Soli commented.
Welcoming Soli’s appointment, the company thanked Amidei for his “dynamic and tenacious” contribution to Valfrutta’s growth, noting that it had achieved rapid and consistent growth both in Italy and abroad.
“Thanks to the many years’ experience Stefano Soli has in the fruit and vegetable sector, with increasing responsibility, Valfrutta Fresco is setting itself even more ambitious goals,” said board president Gabriele Chiesa.
Those goals will centre around offering consumers an even broader range of 100 per cent Italian, natural and genuine products.
The brand’s success, Chiesa added, depends on those consumers knowing that its products are “fresh, tasty and guaranteed by a traceability system that allows you to know the product’s entire journey from the field to the point of sale”.
Valfrutta Fresco now markets 20 different types of fruit and vegetable, including around 100 individual products, as well as roughly 40 fresh-cut salad lines – all under the Valfrutta brand.
