Italians like healthy new products, they say. But is that true? FreshPlaza talked to two foreign companies selling fruit and vegetable products at Sana in Bologna.
Organic crisps at Sana.
The first one was FZ Organic Food, a Dutch company producing organic crisps under the Trafo brand. Janet Nuijten explained that, "we sell a lot of salted crisps in Italy while, abroad, other varieties like for example paprika are also very popular. The olive oil crisps we presented at Biofach received a good feedback at Sana, just like those baked in coconut oil."
The new FZ Organic Food products: olive oil crisps and crisps baked in coconut oil.
"Just as we have seen in the UK, Germany and Netherlands, Italians like them because they are something different.".
Janet Nuijten from FZ Organic Food.
The second company was the German Voelkel, which produces organic fruit juices and smoothies. In Bologna, they presented the three smoothie flavours they launched in May - mango, kale and spinach; beetroot, kale and spinach as well as orange, kale and spinach.
New smoothies from Voelkel.
"The feedback was great because Italian consumers are interested in products that are healthy. We ran out of mango smoothies, probably because they contain both mango and ginger, which are very popular all over Europe at the moment," explains international sales manager Maik Trinowitz.
Azzurra Resmini and Maik Trinowitz from Voelkel.
Voelkel produces 250 products, most of which are fruit and vegetable drinks. "Thirty of them are available in Italy but we are hoping to introduce the rest too. We are registering a 10% growth in Europe every year, and especially in Denmark, Germany, France and Italy."