Italian fresh convenience specialist La Linea Verde has seen its turnover rise again over the past year, increasing to €195m in 2014 from €186m in the previous 12 months.
Producing around one million individual product units per day and around 160m bags of salad a year, the Brescia-based company now boasts 61 separate product lines and employs around a thousand people across a production area of 40,000m2.
Here, chairman Giuseppe Battagliola talks about recent growth at the group he founded with his brother Domenico.
Italy is a hugely important market for fresh-cut in Europe and La Linea Verde is its leading supplier in that category. How have you managed to secure a leading position in what is a very competitive new segment of the fresh produce market?
Giuseppe Battagliola: Our company is solid and boasts an experience of over 20 years in the fresh-cut market. In fact, we contributed significantly to creating this market at the beginning of the 90s. Not only do we turn fresh vegetables into ready-to-eat products, we also cultivate it on our farms and process it at our five production sites.
In addition, we can rely on a super-selected, trustworthy and certified supply chain. In this way, we guarantee high quality raw material, which arrives at our sites promptly every day to be processed.
In Italy, you are undoubtedly a benchmark as far as large-scale retailers are concerned, correct?
GB: Sure. In Italy, we supply almost all the main large-scale retail chains. Over the years, our relationship with retailers has become focused on collaboration and consultancy, besides ‘simple’ supply. Just think that nowadays more than 40 private labels choose us.
You’ve also been increasing your presence abroad. Where?
GB: We operate abroad in two ways. On the one hand, in 2008 we opened a new branch in Navarra, Spain, implementing the same format as La Linea Verde Italy, which is characterised by guaranteed monitoring of the entire supply chain: from seeding and harvesting at the farm to processing at the production site, all the way up to transport management. Our Spanish branch supplies the Spanish market.
Then we’ve got our export activity from Italy. This generates around 30 per cent of our total turnover, which in 2014 achieved €195m. Our DimmidiSì and store-brand items can be found in Austria (Spar and Billa), in Belgium (Delhaize) and in Poland (Biedronka).Moreover, we are planning to export our products to the UK, Germany and France. We also had a very important project for the Russian market; before the embargo our products were sold also in Moscow, where we enjoyed immediate success among Russian consumers.
Do you export also loose product?
GB: Yes, we do. We export loose product all over Europe, for example baby leaf salad produced by our company Ortomad, situated near Salerno, one of the main baby leaf producers in Europe. All year long our farming company produces and markets packed, unwashed produce mainly for northern Europe, where low temperatures prevent vegetable growth for several months.
La Linea Verde was founded in 1991, but your experience goes back further, correct?
GB: Before founding La Linea Verde, my brother Domenico [pictured on the left of the image with Giuseppe, right] and I used to run a little horticultural company near Brescia. Our experience in agriculture began when we were still children. Then, when we founded La Linea Verde, we were able to capitalise on our experience and knowhow for fresh-cut products and our own brand, DimmidiSì. Since then, our purpose has always been to make fruit and vegetables easier for consumers to use, by launching ultra-fresh quality and high-convenience products, and by creating new consumption occasions.
What challanges do you face in terms of production?
GB: We have a short and extremely well-organised supply chain made up of farms owned and operated directly by the La Linea Verde Group, as well as over 350 other qualified horticultural companies located throughout Italy, each of which has been specifically evaluated and selected. All the products offered by La Linea Verde and the supply chain boast integrated pest management certification, and the group even guarantees pesticide residue levels much below the limits required by law. And this is to underline that we offer high quality fresh products. Then comes the research.
What kind of research?
GB: Research in the field! In our greenhouses, especially in the ones situated in Piana de Sele, in southern Italy, we have been performing some agronomical analysis aimed at improving the quality and range of our fresh produce, our baby leaf salads in particular. We also co-operate with seed producers and with some universities, such as the University of Foggia.
That’s interesting. Has anything emerged from those programmes recently?
GB: We have just launched our new Le Stellate line under our brand DimmidiSì. This is a new range of ready-to-eat salads made up of threee original recipes: new varieties of raw material and original mixes in an attractive package, easily recognisable on shelf. We started to study these new recipes two years ago by selecting innovative varieties for the fresh-cut market that could be available all year. The result has been a very original offer without equal on the market, capable of satisfying consumer demand for quality and innovation.
Strategically speaking, how important is speed – as in speed of processing, speed of production – for your business?
GB: Speed of action is a key point in the fresh-cut market. We are so sure about it, that over the years we have constantly invested in research and development to improve the performance of our production site in Manerbio. This is where we have our most state-of-the-art technologies – our technological partners even test their innovations on our lines. Just to give an example of our speed of action, we receive just-harvested salad at night and, already by the following day, we deliver washed and bagged salad to points of sale.
Logistics must also play a key role then. How do you manage your cold chain?
GB: Maintaining the cold chain is essential to preserve the quality and the freshness of our products. Otherwise all the work done in advance would be lost. La Linea Verde Group also includes a refrigerated transport company with around 100 trucks, which deliver our products in Italy.
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