RIMINI, Italy – Business plans, know-how and application of the current regulations regarding serving food, investments and financing, design, anticipating or going along with consumers´ needs, creating innovative services, communication and social media. Assessing the opportunity of exporting one´s artisan business ideas.
Numerous aspects contribute to ensuring the success of businesses, including artisan gelato parlours. Competition in this sector is not just based on products, but many other aspects that professionals cannot overlook.
SIGEP (Rimini Fiera, 23-27 January 2016), is hosting a series of conferences addressing the sector´s trade members in order to provide indications, figures and useful examples for being proactive entrepreneurs able to face the market´s challenges.
Top-grade gelato parlours: how to be competitive for services and unique concepts
The success of a gelato parlour undoubtedly depends on the tastiness and quality of the gelato it sells, but an important role is also played by the location´s image and services. To cover these aspects in depth at SIGEP, on Saturday 23rd January 2016, two conferences will be held.
Proceedings begin at 11:00 am in the Tiglio Room, with ´Designing, realizing and running a safe successful artisan gelato parlour´.
The initiative is organized by Massimo Artorige Giubilesi, food technologist, chairman of FCSI Italia, chairman of the Lombardy and Liguria Food Technologists Association. Speakers will include Gianpietro Sacchi, designer and lecturer at the Course of Design for Restaurant & Food Retail of POLI.design – Milan Polytechnic Consortium.
Sacchi anticipates, ´Problems often arise for the activities at the realization stage, as the would-be entrepreneurs do not contact experts in matters such as regulations, process and equipment and the basic fundamental rules of the project´s development are not, such as: needs analysis and feasibility study, preliminary, definitive, executive and as-built designs
We shall therefore make artisans more aware of the importance of working correctly, contacting specialized professionals and investing in a sustainable coherent matter.
Everything must start with the product´s wholesomeness, which is clients´ security, and then proceed with the realization of a gelato parlour that is unique from the point of view of design. In short, information and practical examples will be provided for planning and designing a top-grade activity, where clients can be secure and in a pleasant environment. So food safety will be combined with style following the regulations, which in Italy are among the strictest, but also exceeding them and doing even better.´
´Attractive, practical, safe, healthy, respectful of the environment´ are the objectives a food retail business should aim at achieving to be top grade, as is suggested by Giubilesi, who asserts that things can be done well ´respecting people and the environment.´
He adds, ´The conference intends being ´a workshop´ with concrete contributions on what to do to open a gelato parlour, with indications on hygiene and health regulations, workplace safety, workers´ health and food safety, with the aim of ensuring consumers´ health and wellbeing, but there will also be talk about business plans: where it is possible to save and what should not be saved on.
By means of constructive networking, an outline will be given of the procedure that enables the cultural change necessary for launching an activity without making mistakes that could have to repercussions on business.
At 3:00 pm, again in the Tiglio Room, proceedings continue with ´Creating a gelato parlour thinking of current and future clients. Contemporary Key Trends´.
The opportunity will be really ´mouth-watering´, as it will be possible to discover the latest trends around the world with real examples of successful businesses.
The initiative is organized by Elena Marinoni, trend forecaster, lecturer in Sociology of consumption, research methods and trend forecasting and curator of the Capri Trendwatching Festival. Speakers will include Gianpietro Sacchi, designer and lecturer at the Course of Design for Restaurant & Food Retail at POLI.design – Milan Polytechnic Consortium.
Sacchi continues, ´During the event, case studies ´further afield´ will be analyzed, i.e. businesses in other sectors where innovation is being introduced from the point of view of service, design and planning, with successful ideas on the methods, sales and client entertainment fronts. Provocative ideas will be suggested to encourage trade members to innovate their business.
Elena Marinoni adds, ´During the Conference, various trends at different levels will be described. Trades close to gelato, such as catering, food service and retail will be considered, presenting a selection of international cases to understand how consumers´ needs are changing, but also to describe consumers´ experiences.
Marinoni stresses, ´Competition based exclusively on actual products is now a thing of the past, now the point is how to excite consumers.´
There will therefore be a virtual ´tour´ on cases that break with tradition. Several areas will be presented, startingfrom the experience of ´consuming on the go´, food tracks, which have led to interesting consequences in the gelato and pastry worlds.
This is a fast-food experience, which however features the high quality of the products and the particular care taken with the all-round experience. Other fields will include the ´convergence of food and design´, such as the study of packaging style, ´mass product customization´ and the ´social dimension´, i.e. cases of companies that work on communication, transforming the product into a social product.
There will be a description of an initiative staged in Copenhagen, where a master chocolatier, on a temporary basis, offered marvellous boxes of chocolates and, instead of paying for them, clients undertook to carry out good deeds, which were then posted on Facebook. Lastly, the ´experimental´ aspect, involving the manipulation of material and ingredients (for example, fluorescent gelato) for a futuristic or surprise effect.
Photos and videos will be used to present successful cases around the world, as well as Italian case histories.
The Sistema Sigep Platform; A window open On the world for artisan Italian gelato
On the site www.sistemasigep.com Italian gelato makers interested in opening a business abroad can find proposals and practical replies to make their projects a reality (from administrative procedure to finding the best suppliers).
The initiative, launched a couple of years ago, has met with trade members´ favour, reporting new points of sales being opened in Germany, Hungary and Latvia.
Up until now, Sistema SIGEP has monitored over a hundred countries worldwide, thus managing to grasp and report business opportunities, indicating Italian trade members the foreign markets with the best prospects of growth and, at the same time, guiding foreign investors in their search for business partners.
For an update on how the artisan gelato trade is progressing outside Italy, two conferences are scheduled. The first is foreseen for Saturday 23rd January 2016 at 2 pm in the Diotallevi Room 1 and will focus on ´Internationalization as an opportunity for growth´.
The issue will be covered by means of the presentation of the methods for approaching foreign markets and the main business and operational models.
The points to which the most attention must be paid in a process of internationalization and the most common mistakes to be avoided will be highlighted.
The speaker will be Erika Andreetta, partner at PWC Advisory SpA, who developed her in-depth experience in PWC´s consultancy in the Retail & Consumer Goods field. (R&C) and is the manager for Italy of Consultancy services for the R&C industry.
She has personally followed important internationalization procedure by primary international groups on the Chinese market and was member of PwC´s CINDIA Desk from 2000 to 2006.
She is currently following streamlining processes of the chain, not to mention international development, in particular in Mexico, Russia and the Arab Emirates.
The second conference is scheduled for Tuesday 26th January, at 11 am in Diotallevi Room 1 and is entitled ´The capital market in support of the growth of the artisan gelato chain leaders.´
The focus will be on the financial instruments supporting the product chain, with particular attention to the most structured services, dedicated to the sector´s outstanding situations.
Participants will include exponents from Banca Intesa, Sace, Idea Capital, Integrae Sim, PWC and IlSole24Ore.
Sigep 2016 at a glance
Dates: 23 – 27 January 2016; Organizers: Rimini Fiera SpA; edition: 37th; frequency: annual; classification: international; admittance: trade members only; hours: 9:30 am . 6:00 pm, last day 9:30 am . 3:00 pm (3:00 . 5:00 pm only with online tickets); business unit manager: Patrizia Cecchi; project managers: Gabriella de Girolamo (gelato), Giorgia Maioli (pastry, bakery, coffee); exhibitor info: tel. +39 0541 744521 fax +39 0541 744772; Web site: www.sigep.it
