The Italian fresh produce business has taken a significant step towards greater coordination and collaboration among its various centres of power with the news that fruit and vegetable wholesale markets association Fedagromercati Nazionale has joined CSO Italy, the country’s largest marketing and research agency for fresh produce.
According to both parties, Fedagro’s membership will make it easier to make the supply chain more efficient, and at the same time improve the potential of individual players in the Italian fruit and veg trade.
In particular, it is expected that the federation’s membership will strengthen CSO’s own mandate, making it far more representative of the sector as a whole.
The opportunity to create dialogue between the markets and suppliers will also be an advantage, sources close to the situation have implied, since it opens up the possibility of jointly organised promotional activities that will make best use of what is an extensive, nationwide sales network.
Furthermore, it is likely to lead to the development of new collaboration projects aimed at promoting Italian produce in Italy and abroad.
Valentino Di Pisa, president of Fedagro, said he was pleased with the decision to join. “This collaboration is a great opportunity for the sector, not least thanks to its symbolic value,” he observed.
“In such a strange moment as the one in which we currently find ourselves, two important entities like Fedagro and CSO Italy, which until today worked on parallel planes, have finally decided to join together because what’s important is to relaunch the category in its entirety, and we can only do this by working together.”
CSO president Paolo Bruni also welcomed the move: “The competitive challenge for Italian fresh produce necessarily requires synergy among all players in the supply chain. I am delighted and honoured to count Fedagro Nazionale among CSO Italy’s members.”
