Three days of taste, meetings and business, and finally the budget smiles at Italy. At the Javits Center in New York, the 70th edition of the Summer Fancy Food Show, the largest food fair in North America, with 2,400 exhibitors from fifty countries and the tricolor once again among the protagonists, strong of a culinary tradition recently recognized intangible heritage of humanity by UNESCO.
To hold high the flag was above all the Italian Pavilion, the largest international space of the event, edited by Universal Marketing. And the budget of this edition is fully positive. “We had a great time, we had a great time,” said Chiara Cinelli, recalling the great party of the Italian Pavilion, which brought together over eight hundred people. “We thank all the companies that each year participate with us in this event, and one in good luck for the future”.
The appointment is already renewed. “I’ll see you next year, the next dates are 25 and 27 July 2027,” said Vanessa Cinelli.
The UNESCO recognition of Italian cuisine, moreover, was the thread that crossed the whole fair. Agriculture Minister Francesco Lollobrigida, present at the Javits Center, wanted to translate it into concreteness. “The Italian cuisine has been recognized as the intangible heritage of humanity, but we want the result to be also very material, that is to say that it brings economy and work”, he said. “For this reason we accompany our entrepreneurs, who guarantee quality and respect of the rules around the world, to sell more. And the United States is an extraordinaryly important market.”.
The United States is in fact the second market for Italian agri-food exports, and hundreds of companies, from bakery products to drinks, continue to stand out here despite the duties of fifteen percent imposed by the American administration and uncertainty about the future of commercial policies. A difficult context, to which is added the node of false Italian products, Italian sounding, that subtracts to the companies of Made in Italy an estimated turnover in tens of billion euros a year.
Faced with these difficulties, the recipe of the government is clear. “As a Country System we are increasing the promotional and development boost, accompanying entrepreneurs”, said Lollobrigida. “If there are more critical issues, we need more resources. The question of Italian agri-food is slowed down, but it has not stopped”. And on why that question resists, the simplest explanation came from the former Christian Vieri champion, host of the fair: “We are unbeatable.”.
On the same line the president of the ICE, Matteo Zoppas, who in the days of the fair synthesized the sense of the Italian presence in New York. “We are here to help you do more business, so that Made in Italy can grow year after year”, he told exhibitors, remembering how agribusiness is one of Italy’s ambassadors in the world.
Beyond numbers and strategies, in the Italian Pavilion air was breathed at home. There was conviviality, love for one’s own land and traditions, and the desire to share food as something precious, a gesture of affection for another. Because events like this, in the end, are an hymn to life, to the beauty of being together and sharing.
L’articolo Fancy Food closes, for Italy a positive budget in New York proviene da IlNewyorkese.