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FEB. MAR. 2021 I I I ensures the collection of orders, which are delivered within a maximum of 24 hours. Since 2015, it has also opened a cash & carry service with a 2,000 square metre warehouse where a wide range of products is available for sale, from breakfast to desserts and everything needed for catering, including local products and hygiene and cleaning products. Actions and requirements to overcome the crisis Innovate and rely on new digital technologies to improve customer service. This is Hielo’s very practical recipe for overcoming the crisis. A recipe that is made up of many ingredients. The main ingredient, on which the company is investing the most resources, is the implementation of the company app, a solution that will optimise activities on several fronts. The first concerns the greater availability of products more efficiently thanks to the possibility of placing orders in real time with expected delivery within 12/24 hours of the order. The second aspect relates to the improvement of customer service, which will give customers the opportunity to view over 5,000 products in stock selected by sector, reference, price and quality. This will amplify and extend the role that the agent played in the past. Finally, the third factor corresponds to greater market distribution. The app makes it possible to get in touch quickly and easily with established and potential customers, who will then be reached by the company’s agents. There are also plans to develop digital strategies through a plan of specific offers that will be promoted on the company’s Facebook and Instagram social profiles. Finally, on the agenda there is also an innovative and ambitious project concerning the company’s website: the extension of sales through e-commerce, which will allow home delivery, is being planned. AT PAGE 10 IN THE PANTRY Strategies for resilience One of the most popular words over the past year has been resilience. Through innovation, cohesion and digitalisation, even foodservice operators can be resilient and prepare to face the future of the out-of-home sector. by Elena Consonni This is certainly not an easy year for the eating-out sector: uncertainty over openings, restrictions on opening hours imposed even in yellow zones and, above all, the impossibility of planning strategies in the medium term are making restaurants suffer. This state of mind/suffering has repercussions on the entire supply chain, strongly affecting the food & beverage wholesale sector, which is highly specialised towards the Horeca target. This category, whose fate follows every move of their customers, has not even been granted access to relief, despite the fact that they have seen a drastic drop in turnover. “It is necessary to reopen,” says Pietro Vincenzo Murgia, president of Cooperativa Italiana Catering, “otherwise the whole supply chain will enter a very deep crisis, from which it will be difficult to get out. Institutions seem to be deaf to our requests, it almost seems as if they do not consider us as an important sector employing many people. It is very difficult for us to turn to channels other than Horeca: we operate on a large scale that would be difficult to adapt to serving food shops, not to mention the end consumer, through the online channel. Since we can’t count on subsidies or other public support, the only advice I can give my colleagues is careful stock management, limiting orders to avoid accumulating stock, which is difficult to dispose of, and to keep a close eye on the accounts to avoid having to resort to bank loans. I believe that the only measure that can give us relief at this point is reopening; there is no evidence of outbreaks in the restaurant sector, not even during last summer’s openings. The problems were related to other types of activities. Restaurateurs have invested a lot to bring themselves up to standard: all we are asking is that they leave us to work”. “The catering sector,” adds Lorenzo Morelli, director of Cooperativa Italiana Catering, “which had overcome the first lockdown thanks to the summer recovery, is now in deep crisis, with the loss of the Christmas period and the winter season, which is especially important for activities in the Alpine regions. I realise that it would have been difficult for anyone to handle situations like this, and that all countries have decided to close their restaurants to contain the contagions, but some countries have supported the sector with more significant assistance than our relief, which, moreover, have been limited to catering activities, without thinking about the upstream supply chain. What makes everything even more complicated is the lack of certainty. In Germany, they announced a week in advance that premises would be closed: restaurateurs and their suppliers therefore had time to organise themselves and plan their purchases, so as not to incur unnecessary costs for perishable goods. In Italy it has never been possible to give such precise indications: from week to week we are waiting for the communication regarding changes to the regional zone colours, which can change from one day to the next. We need stability to