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March/April 2023 II MAGAZINE Arrows),is the world’s largest aerobatics team and succeeds every day, consistently for 55 years, to combine the many individual skills present, with an intelligent team synergy, where each of the more than one hundred members of the group, from the commander to the 10 pilots making up the aerobatic formation, is able to bring its essential contribution to the achievement of the final goal. Only with the utmost trust in teammates, combined with willingness and ability to ‘team up’, such a particular department can achieve the success that is recognised within the global scenario. The secret of these environments? Motivation, open-mindedness, hierarchical respect understood as the observance of shared and accepted rules in the name of a superior objective and the ability to be a leader and be led within the team adapting to the situation at hand. All this represents an almost unstoppable and overwhelming explosive potential for the achievement of their objectives. The Tricolour Arrows are a metaphor to express my vision of what must be CIC: a cohesive and united work team capable of tackling the challenge of change through attitudes of excellence. Our ‘soloist’? Definitely the Qualitaly brand that makes the ‘show’ more gripping, keeps the audience in suspense, and at the end of the performance, to rapturous applause. Right here is my wish for our brand and for the future of our Cooperative! Silvestro Panconi, Director of Cooperativa Italiana Catering AT PAGE 6 #CICMEUP Qualitaly, a win-win solution for the food service sector COOPERATIVA ITALIANA CATERING SUPPORTS ITS INNOVATIVE PROJECT BY DEPLOYING A WIN WIN BUSINESS MODEL. AT CIBUS CONNECTING IN PARMA, THE AGRI-FOOD CHAIN WAS CALLED UPON AND THE COOPERATIVE PRESENTED ITSELF AS A QUALIFIED AND PROACTIVE INTERMEDIARY BETWEEN PRODUCTION AND CATERING, PROPOSING THE QUALITALY SOLUTION. CIC’S INITIATIVE WAS STILL DESCRIBED AS ‘A GAMBLE’, BUT WAS WELL RECEIVED ‘BY THE LAST MILE’ OF THE CHAIN Cibus Connecting Parma, 29 and 30 March 2023. Animation, comparisons, masterclasses, guests, chefs and, last but not least, competence and professionalism. Cooperativa Italiana Catering has partnered with Cibus Connecting as a reference for distribution to the Food Service channel. An original exhibition immediately caught the eye of visitors entering Cibus from the VIP entrance. A three-dimensional wall built out of Qualitaly product cartons. A brand, the stand quoted, ‘designed for Food Service’. No less impressive was the Qualitaly image for visitors entering from the South entrance, welcomed by the colourful packaging on display in the innovation corner. It was the packaging that was the real innovation of the Qualitaly project. A minimal style, with different multi-coloured formats, yet unmistakable and recognisable. Packaging designed for the professional sector that the Cooperative’s thirty-six members approach on a daily basis through trained and qualified sales networks. Attentive above all to grasping their customers’ problems and giving them solutions. While today Italian catering is a candidate for 2023 UNESCO World Heritage Site, it has always been a heritage for our peninsula and should be preserved as such. However, the difficulties faced by the catering industry are many, but the greatest threat is the unsustainable costs and lack of personnel. The temptation to reduce the quality of ingredients used in order to keep costs down is strong. On the other hand, the lack of professionalism in the kitchen compromises the execution of dishes. Added to this is the difficulty of production in finding ingredients due to climate change. And the distribution in all this? Squeezed between two poles, or at least the small and medium-sized distributors. Their low purchasing capacity makes them less competitive than their national competitors and funds. To stay in the market, they are forced to reduce margins, but despite this, supply is not guaranteed. It is on these reflections that the Qualitaly project was born. The network and identification are the value, as well as the raison d’être of the Cooperative. Qualitaly thus becomes the driver of the members’ desire to create a system and to be recognisable among competitors by further qualifying the services and the offer proposed to customers. Packaging the quality of the products distributed in a container that is itself functional. MASTERCLASSES: FOUR MOMENTS OF ENCOUNTER An opportunity to represent the ‘Qualitaly system’, the masterclasses hosted three qualified speakers who brought their experience in production and talked about their work and commitment to harvesting quality ingredients. Paolo Lombardi , born in 1990. Although young, he has been a farmer since 2012, when he took over the running of the family farm from his grandfather. Cesare Soldi , a farmer from Cremona and president of AMI, Associazione Maiscoltori Italiani (Italian Corn Growers Association). After graduating in mechanical engineering from Milan Polytechnic and obtaining an MBA from SDA Bocconi in Milan, he took over the running of the family farm. 100 hectares cultivated in a very small village, Derovere, in the middle of the Po Valley and close to the river Po. Alessandro Irico , Quality Director of Riso Scotti, has been working in the rice business for about 35 years. He