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AUG. SEP. 2021 XI AT PAGE 28 IN THE PANTRY More lifeblood for the restaurant industry We take stock of subsidies and aid to the sector with business consultant Angelo Salonna. by Alessandro Vergallo It’s been more than a year and a half since former Prime Minister, Giuseppe Conte, announced to Italians the total closure of all public establishments due to the Covid19 pandemic. March 9, 2020. A date that will remain etched in the memory of us all. Dismay, fear, precariousness, powerlessness and above all a lot of uncertainty for our future and that of the country. Last March, the appearance of vaccines and their mass inoculation have allowed Italians to see the now much touted ‘light at the end of the tunnel’, giving citizens the confidence to return to lead a normal life. If we go back about a year, on August 14, 2020 in the Official Gazette was published Decree Law No. 104/21, better known as the ‘August Decree’ which provided support to businesses, especially those operating in the restaurant industry. Article 58 granted a non-repayable contribution to all food and drink businesses for the purchase of wine, food and agricultural products, including PDO and PGI products. An important measure not only for the economic support that the State offered to entrepreneurs affected by the pandemic, but above all because it proved the Government’s awareness that the restaurant industry was among the sectors most affected by forced closure compared to other sectors. Despite the economic support adequately dedicated to the sector in question, there has been no shortage of problems in obtaining it. Bureaucracy and delays in the disbursement of these funds have added to the problem, causing many delays. The entrepreneurs involved could decide to submit their applications electronically, through a platform created by Poste Italiane, or by physically going to the post offices to formalize their requests. LET’S BE CLEAR Angelo Salonna, a chartered accountant with Studio Pugliese in Milan, says: “Last year the disbursement was not timely mainly because there was no single direction and the rules were confusing and cumbersome, the bases of calculation changed often and there was also a lack of alignment with the database. All this has penalised certain sectors, such as the catering, tourism and hotel industries. Transport and health, on the other hand, benefited from the support. The Government, in order to make things easier for the entire food & beverage sector, in deep crisis due to the continuation of the pandemic, subsequently granted operators a further extension for the submission of applications for funds to 15 December 2020, instead of 28 November. On the other hand, however, it cut the money previously allocated, from 600 million to 450 million, of