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oct.-nov. 2015
V
recession is over. It has cost tears and
blood to Italian families who have left
on the plate since 2007, 122 billion euro
(47 billion lower savings and a 75 billion
lower consumption).
Anyways clouds remain on the horizon
as a possible retouching to VAT rates,
already among the highest in Europe,
with obviously detrimental effect on
consumption just broken down and
the persistence of high unemployment,
especially among young people and
especially in the South.
But more than the change of slight
positive sign of GDP, which was
opened in 2015 (the growth of our
economy waiting for the end of a
year is + 0.7%) is the sentiment of the
Italians to be changed. Happiness is
home to Northern Europe but Italians,
like Germans and the French and the
Spanish before, show good levels of
satisfaction with their quality of life
and 52% of people (it was 41% just a
year ago) consider unchanged or even
improved their situation.
Seven years of crisis, however, have
left deep scars in the social fabric of
our country, is an Italy bipolar and
schizophrenic; more and longer, more
and more South (between Trento
and Calabria run over 1000 Euros of
difference in monthly expenditure), the
generational gap has widened (under
35 spend 100 euro per month in less of
those over 65) and the work continues
to be the largest gender discriminating
and the great chimera. A third of the
population is at risk of poverty or social
exclusion; half of Italian families live
on less than EUR 2,000 per month and
the epicenter is obviously in the South.
Conversely 20% of households own 38%
of the total income of the country.
ITALIANS CHANGE. Families are
getting smaller, fewer marriages and
more cohabitation, fewer children (the
record low reached in 2014 with just
509,000 births). With the euro that we
ended up in the pockets (those few
that Italians did not want to save by
continuing to perpetrate a population
of ants rather than cicadas: in 2015 the
savings rate rose goes from 8 , 6% to
9.2), Italians are back to consumption
evergreen. They have started to buy
houses (because of a price stabilization
and recovery of the loans), they have
replaced the park of their appliances
(washing machine, the myth of the
sixties, but also the dryer + 50% just last
year), registrations of cars (+ 15% in 2015
sales) even if mobility is always sweeter:
the preferred range is just 5 km from
the residence and the bicycle a must
irreplaceable (the bike than by degree
of satisfaction motorbike, car, subway,
trains and buses).
Wellness is the mantra for Italians. If
you were to find a password for the
new Italian would portray wellness, feel
good but in a less hedonistic past: we
are the leanest of Europe and among the
longest-lived, we allow less vices of the
past, like smoke and alcohol. Only 63%
say they drink alcohol. The remainder
of the population is considered alcohol
free drinker, which says not to drink
alcohol for more than one year.
However, a growing proportion of
occasional and consumption between
meals, to report how the intake of
alcohol, move from the table to the
domestic social occasions outdoor,
especially for younger people.
FOOD CONSUMPTION. If we look
into the pot, we realize that yes we
eat the same amount of food seventies
(2.8 kilograms per day) but it was
profoundly changed the diet and more
extensively the types of consumption.
Crazy for bio food on the one hand (+
20% per year), it also grows the “food
of renunciation”: 10% of Italians are
vegetarian (a record in Europe followed
by the Germans), 2% claim to be vegan.
There is also a growing of consumption
of ethnic food (+ 18% in 2015): the
internationalization of taste -EXPO or
not- centers in our country accomplices
certainly the increase in migration.
According to figures released recently
by the Government, half of Italians
have experienced at one time the ethnic
cuisine while one in five ethnic eats
once a month.
It is a new way to consume that takes
three directions. At first glances the
restaurant: from Unioncamere data
on registration of new companies
shows that between 2011 and 2014
this catering sector grew by 1.6%.
Restaurants newly opened, nearly one
in three is ethnic. There are about
190 thousand in the whole country:
that China is the most common (40%),
followed by Japan (16%) and Mexico
(15%). Following the ethnic grocers and
modern distribution.
MEALS OUTDOORS. With the
emergence of the first signs of recovery,
it is possible that eating out is among
the items intended to benefit most from
the improved business climate. The first
information on the 2015 is encouraging
in this regard.
Italians are rediscovering the pleasure
of eating out: the growth of the catering
market is certainly one of the good
news of this in 2015 and marks a major
change of pace than in the recent past.
The opportunities for conviviality food
were the items of expenditure for the
first sacrificed by families.
That recorded in 2015 is the first
positive sign of change from 2011 to the
sector outside the home: after years of
sacrifices, the families returned to give
yourself a chance of leisure and food
consumption has taken again its most
purely hedonistic.
Moderation and caution out there,
but still the sense of a turnaround:
in the first four months of the year
documenting an increase of 0.3% for
the number of visits to bars, pizzerias
and restaurants and 0.2% the value of
the expenditure over the same period
last year. According to the NPD survey,
families in Italy generate 19% of the
total value of commercial catering.
The presence of families grew in 2015
mainly on the premises as a full-service
restaurants and pizzerias (+ 2.4%) but
also in the service as fast as the bar (+
1.7%).
At pAge 18
Fish, demand is
growing, resources
at risk
The fish market is under pressure.
Increased consumption is matched by
resource depletion. It’s important to
rely on certain suppliers, to guarantee
the customers. That’s the role of
traceability.
By Pietro Cinti
More and more fish on the tables of
Italian restaurants. A counterpoint to
the reduction in spending on eating
out of our compatriots, fish dishes
are rapidly climbing the menus of
many local historians with a strong
maritime tradition, up to the most
modern reading fish and related key in
following the fusion of many influences
international cuisine.
An explosion that covers all the
beautiful country, from north to south,
from the coast to the mountain areas,
according to a philosophy opposed
to the “zero kilometer” on everyone’s
lips these days. Why, despite the
long tradition, Italy now occupies the
sixth position in European fisheries