Italian Gelateria conquering the World

Italian Gelateria conquering the World

A family business has produced for more than 60 years genuine Italian gelato after own artisan recipes, mixing with innovation, technology and industrial know-how, in order to be up to date with consumers’ tastes around the world. Claudia Cordenos, Export Manager at G7 Srl, tells us how the business adapts to the new realities of the global market.

How was 2020 for the G7 business and how was it affected by the pandemic?

The consequences of the global pandemic of COVID-19, that changed radically the habits of purchasing for the consumers, affected inevitably our sales during 2020. The HoReCa segment, especially, underwent a very difficult period in the last months. The restrictions imposed in more countries at the national level and the uncertain current situation hinders the restart of this market, the same situation was registered also in the case of the catering segment for the airlines, that registered encouraging increases until last year. But, on the other hand, the retail area recorded good performances, following the consumers’ preference to increase the food stocks at home. In terms of the company G7, the emergency in the health field affected the entire sector in the first stage, generating difficulties especially for the long-distance transports, both in terms of availability of vehicles, and the monitoring of the duration of deliveries. Thus, there were many delays and cancellations of the reservations. Moreover, there were partial interruptions of the activity because of the lockdowns at the national level, which led to problems during the entire production chain, from purchasing of raw materials to the management of the packaging of the orders. We still have difficulties, but the situation seems to be stable now, even if the future is full of doubts, fears and challenges.

Which do you think are the main challenges for the G7 business in 2021?

Among the medium-term objectives there are the distribution strengthening on the markets where we are present and the extension to other countries. We will grant special attention to the new distribution channels and to the digitalization of the sale processes in certain areas, according to the needs of the international modern markets and the new habits of consumption in the post-COVID-19 era. In order to resume the exports new visibility and marketing instruments are required, that replace the traditional events such as the fairs, that were cancelled or postponed and are no longer feasible or even non-recommended in short and medium terms.

Which are the main trends on the gelato market? Have consumers changed their preferences?

Currently, we export our products in more than 60 countries in the entire world, offering our clients gluten free gelato in different formats (from innovative mini boxes of 150 ml with a little spoon under the lid, to the traditional format of food industry of 4,750 litres), gelato with whipped cream, lactose free sorbet with fruits or chocolate, Clean Label gelato, vegan gelato, 100% organic gelato in 100% compostable packaging. The traditional Italian gelato, filled and decorated by hand is our main segment, the best sold are the traditional artisan recipes with pistachio, tiramisu and Crema di Firenze. The organic and “free from” segments (without certain ingredients, such as gluten or milk – ed. note) grow, especially those for the vegan consumers.

30% is the minimum weight of the exports in the annual turnover of G7

Which are the main markets for G7 business? How important the Romanian market is?

The exports are more than 30% of the annual turnover. The Romanian market is strategic and important for us. Due to the excellent long collaboration with our exclusive importer, Maresi, we educated and developed the market along the years. Maresi is not a simple importer, we think it is the ambassador Siviero Maria Gelato in Romania. The Maresi team knows the market and can anticipate the trends, which allows us to always provide new successful aromas for Romanian consumers.

How do you adapt your offer to each market?

From the very beginning we have promoted the quality and the innovation in order to be able to cover ever careful and picky consumers’ needs. We continuously invest in research-development, not only to extend the range of products, but also to adapt to the newest global trends, always meeting at the same time the national safety protocols and the quality standards. We provide a large assortment not only in terms of aromas, but also the concept and the features of the product, in order to answer the needs of a changing international market. The local importers and distributers play a crucial role in the development process of new products, by the suggestions they make and the half-yearly reports regarding the market trends.

How do you manage to innovate and stay at the same time faithful to the tradition?

G7 is a modern company, certified to the newest standards, led by the same family since 1958.

Yet this continuity element embraced innovation, combining technology and industrial know-how with the best kept secrets of artisan tradition. We recreate the original artisan value on our production lines, by filling and decorating by hand most of our products. We carefully choose the raw materials, such as hazelnuts, PGI Piedmont, green pistachio PDO from Bronte, fresh milk of the best quality, essential to be able to always provide our unique taste of gelato. By choosing the best ingredients we can develop new original recipes each year, whose quality was recognized by the experts and the professionals who granted us prestigious international awards (2020 SIAL Innovation Award, 2019 Italian Food Award). We also produce the syrups we use in our products, following the strict rules of artisan tradition. Moreover, the environmental protection is part of our mission. We choose product packaging and innovations that provide benefits both for consumers, and the planet. We introduced our first packaging 100% compostable in 2017 (the box and the lid are of bagasse, the fibre material left after the extraction of the sugar cane content) and recently we launched the new 100% compostable bamboo packaging.

Translation Supported by AB Traduceri