QUALITALY_134

May/June 2023 III MAGAZINE for the customers who have placed their trust in you and continuing to operate with a great sense of responsibility that is needed to maintain the relationship created. “When you visit a customer the first thing you sell is yourself, later on you propose the products you have visited the place for”. This is the opinion of Antonio Di Lorito , owner of Mister Chef, a leading food wholesaler operating in the provinces of Pescara, Chieti, Teramo, L’Aquila, Campobasso, Isernia, Macerata and Ascoli Piceno. ‘We have always been at the forefront of the industry,’ explains Di Lorito, ‘and our customers are always satisfied with our quality service. Hence the idea of always keeping this link alive. And to do so, during these years, we have cyclically organised events to bring suppliers in contact with our customers’. AND IS THAT WHAT YOU RECENTLY DID IN CITTÀ SANT’ANGELO? Exactly! Last May we organised a very special two-day event - Open Doors at Mister Chef - which we shared with customers and suppliers. It’s an event that we do every 5/6 years where suppliers display their products, have them tasted and you can also find out (thanks to the involvement of some chefs) how best to use them. WHERE DOES THE EVENT TAKE PLACE? Each time we change location. This year we were guests at Villa Chiara in Città Sant’Angelo, near Pescara. It is a wonderful location that is usually used for weddings. Around 300 people took part in the two-day event, which also provided some pleasant evenings where work was accompanied by a lot of fun, given the large number of exceptional guests who livened up the evenings with singers, showmen and cabaret artists. DID YOU ALSO GET A LOT OF MEDIA EXPOSURE? Ours are very provincial towns. We often tend to think in terms of big cities where there are big media events at any given time. Here, an operation such as ours is a bit of an exception; and so Open Doors at Mister Chef is transformed into an occasion for local political parties (the mayor also attended the event) and, therefore, also for the media, from newspapers to TV. IS IT ALSO A MARKETING OPERATION FOR YOU? Of course. We have several competitors, some of them very well-structured. So to maintain such a close relationship with customers after 44 years it’s really essential to show all our competence and professionalism. AND CUSTOMERS ACKNOWLEDGE THIS... We have always proven to be able to recommend the best products in terms of both quality and price. We present ourselves as the essential partner of every company which offers a very wide range. Importantly, and I would like to emphasise this, we are not the ones with the lowest price but we have the right price-quality ratio. HOW DO YOU DEFINE THE POST- COVID MARKET? Definitely a more mature market. Payments have improved because the entrepreneurs in the sector are more careful about expenses and income. In my opinion, Covid has paradoxically strengthened the sector, today there are those entrepreneurs left who really know how to do this - very difficult - job. Therefore, it is a joy for us to be able to ‘give’ them an event like ours, which aims to reinforce their ‘new-found’ desire to do things, but above all to do them well. Exactly as we have wanted and done for over 40 years! AT PAGE 16 FOCUS ON The damage in Emilia Romagna is still being counted, a land that wants to start again PRODUCTION INTERRUPTED, THOUSANDS OF HECTARES SUBMERGED BY WATER AND THE FRUIT AND VEGETABLE SECTOR THAT WILL TAKE YEARS TO GET BACK UP TO SPEED, NOT TO MENTION THE FARMS DESTROYED, THE LANDSLIDES AND, OF COURSE, THE HUMAN LIVES LOST. THE SITUATION, IN ONE OF THE MOST PRODUCTIVE AND RICHEST AREAS IN EUROPE, IS DIFFICULT, BUT THE DESIRE TO GET BACK ON TRACK IS GREAT... THANKS TO A DETERMINED PEOPLE AND AN ENTIRE SUPPLY CHAIN THAT WORKS AND CREATES SYNERGY by Maddalena Baldini The damage is still being counted. Emilia Romagna, which was hit by devastating floods in May in the areas of Forlì, Cesena, Faenza, some areas in the province of Antonio Di Lorito