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March/April 2023 III MAGAZINE follows the agricultural part of sustainability projects, a crucial aspect of the rice supply chain. Cutting-edge technologies, selective irrigation, sustainability, strict supply chain processes and a lot of passion are what the producers put in place to deliver quality ingredients to the industry, which become Qualitaly products. The fourth speaker, Giorgia Spigno , is a professor at the Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore in the Department of Food Science and Technology. In her studies for a sustainable agri-food chain, packaging plays a central role. She explained how the packaging of Qualitaly products is not only sustainable in that it reduces the use of colour and environmental impact, but in that it represents an integrated system with the food it contains and protects. The yield and dosage indications contained in the packaging are fundamental for a responsible use of the product and oriented towards avoiding waste in the kitchen. Qualitaly packages are in fact designed to be a working tool making the preparation of dishes efficient. A ‘SPECIAL’ BRIGADE An original masterclass involved the staff and management of Cooperativa Italiana Catering. Although they are not professional chefs, they set out to demonstrate how, by using good quality ingredients and the indications in the packaging, a dish worthy of Italian cuisine can be prepared. Narrating this experience was none other than Chef Lucio Pompili, brand ambassador and author of the recipes. A ‘synthesis of the language of cooking’ using Qualitaly products, authoritative and accessible. The Masterclasses that enlivened the Hub area set up by the Cibus organisers were a practical example, a game played in earnest, with which the solution Cooperativa Italiana Catering devised for its customers was publicly tested. THE CHALLENGES OF EATING OUT CIC’s latest appointment at Cibus: collaboration at the conference ‘The challenge of quality and the call to action of the distribution sector’. A round table in which, together with Cooperativa Italiana Catering, four representatives of the production side and the organised catering sector, represented by Durini Milano, took part. The spotlight was shone on the challenges facing the eating out sector and the analyses brought, albeit from different points of view, unanimously focused on the profound change in the sector. The solution is to focus on quality products, but the initiatives taken are very different. To the appeal of organised catering, which is a growing segment compared to the past, production seems to have inadequate responses, or at least perceived as such. In contrast, the CIC solution was received with interest. Offering quality products, contained in packaging that becomes a useful working tool for calculating food costs and anti-waste, is a proposal that meets the needs of the catering industry. Added to this is the fact that the members’ network has a capillary presence in almost all of Italy and that the small to medium size of the member companies allows for a better logistical service and better training of the sales network, which is more competent than larger players. AT PAGE 12 FOCUS ON The restaurant industry recovers A SNAPSHOT OF THE HEALTH OF THE ITALIAN RESTAURANT INDUSTRY SHOWS THAT ANALYSTS EXPECT THE SECTOR TO GROW BY BETWEEN 5 AND 10 PER CENT Sales boom in 2023 for the eating-out sector. Although still lower than 2019 levels by 4 percentage points at current values, household expenditure in the restaurant sector has risen to around 82 billion euro, approaching the 85.5 billion of the pre- Covid period, also driven by the return of international tourism, while the added value of the sector exceeded 43 billion euro in 2022 (+18% compared to the previous year). This is what emerges from the Annual Catering Report edited by FIPE- Confcommercio presented a few weeks ago in Rome. The study took a snapshot of the state of health of an important sector for the national economy and, with a look beyond the obstacles, identified the challenges that await the sector in the near future. The Report states that as at December 2022 there were 336,000 companies operating in the catering market. Of these, 9,526 started up business during the year, while almost 20,139 companies closed their doors, with a negative