Aziende Italia - Puntata con ospite Claudia Cremonini

Yes, this year on July 1st we close the celebrations of the 50th anniversary of the founding of Inarca, the first company my father started. There have been three fundamental stages: first, the growth of consumption in our country; second, his great foresight in identifying all the major market changes; and third, his ability to anticipate major changes. For example, in the 1960s he was already traveling to Germany and Holland with a Fiat Topolino to buy and sell cattle, anticipating European integration. In the mid-1980s, he saw the flattening of meat consumption in Italy and anticipated globalization, entering Russia and Angola while conflicts were still ongoing. At the same time, the massive entry of women into the workforce changed eating habits, so we began producing innovative products like hamburgers, pre-cut and pre-cooked cutlets, and frozen products.

Exactly. When I returned after finishing my studies in the US, my father said we had to make a frozen hamburger. It was the first branded meat product, because until the end of the 1980s meat was a commodity. The most difficult thing was to make it standard in weight and characteristics. We fought prejudices about frozen food, but if you freeze a good product, you get a good product. With today's advanced technologies and proper production processes, you always get a quality product.

First of all, we serve the Russian and African markets by bringing Italian products to all the Italian realities that are there and already operating, such as restaurants, hotels, and international tourism that demands international products. What we do abroad is distribute food products. But I want to specify: 5% of what we produce in Italy is distributed through our distribution centers, and the other 95% are raw materials and Italian products like pasta, oil, preserves that we export to support the Horeca world around the world. The difference we have made in these 25 years is that we have created our own structures; we are not at the mercy of sales agents. We directly manage our distribution line. We have a beautiful showroom in Frasinago.

We aimed for a steakhouse and we succeeded in 2001. I won't hide the difficulties: we were supposed to open in February, but on January 13, 2001, mad cow disease broke out and we had to delay the opening by nine months. But from that moment on, Roadhouse Grill continued to grow. After an initial adjustment period because it was an American brand, we completely revised the menu and adapted the formula to the Italian market, because the needs are very different in terms of taste, food quality, and simplicity. Our steak houses today on average employ about 35 to 135 employees, are open every day, and are located on major highways and large urban areas. So far we are mainly in northern Italy, but we have four in Rome.

I want to debunk this concept. When you enter a chain restaurant, you can make a career path exactly like in any industrial company. The activity of a waiter within Roadhouse actually offers a series of growth possibilities: you can also train behind the kitchen as a grill cook, and then you can become a store manager or even an entrepreneur. We already have three locations that we have given in franchise to our employees, who have become entrepreneurs of themselves. They now manage the location under a licensing agreement. We prefer to have people from inside who already know the trade and are personally involved. This method is used in other countries like France and England, but in Italy it hasn't taken hold because of the culture that sees being a waiter as just a support job for the family business. But today, family-run restaurants are declining, and chain restaurants offer real growth opportunities. It's time to get rid of the idea that a waiter cannot grow.

Today the objectives are global. We recently made an agreement with the United Arab Emirates to build platforms in Abu Dhabi. We made an agreement with Eurasia, with a large partner in Russia for the development of all activities in Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, and the whole Eurasian area, and we continue in Russia. What we do is create platforms to distribute food products because we must not forget that Made in Italy food is the most rewarding and newest sector now, since fashion and furniture are already consolidated. Expo this coming year will give even more international visibility. The important thing is to approach these markets with local presence, not to be at the mercy of local agents. We have to be able to deliver every day to restaurants, bars, supermarkets. For example, in Moscow we deliver fresh burrata from Naples three times a week by air. We are no longer just meat; we have become distributors of food products, but we can do it because we have centers with cold chain logistics.

I have had all the luck in the world in having a very united family and also a mother-in-law who was very present. To be honest, in the early years, my mother followed my children until they were two. Then, when the other brothers had children, she told each of us to manage our own. So I took my children to my mother-in-law, to whom I owe a monument. It's never easy to balance, but knowing that my children were not in unknown hands gave me the peace of mind to do what I had to do.