Together with his brother Domenico, Giuseppe Battagliola is the chairman and co-founder of La Linea Verde Ltd, a leader in the Italian fresh-cut market.FreshPlaza (FP): La Linea Verde is also increasing its presence abroad. Where?
We operate abroad in two ways. On one side, in 2008 we opened a new branch in Navarra, Spain, implementing the same format of La Linea Verde Italy, which is characterized by the monitoring guaranteed by the entire supply chain: from seeding and harvesting at the farm, to processing at the production site, all the way up to transport management. Our Spanish branch supplies the Spanish market.
From left, Domenico and Giuseppe Battagliola in front of the La Linea Verde's headquarter.
FP: And what about the other way?
Then we’ve got our export activity from Italy. This generates around 30% of our total turnover, which in 2014 achieved 195 million Euro. Our DimmidiSì and store brand items can be found in Austria (Spar and Billa), in Belgium (Delhaize), in Poland (Biedronka). Moreover, we are planning to export our products in Great Britain, in Germany and in France. We also had a very important project for the Russian market… before the embargo our products were sold also in Moscow, where we enjoyed immediate success among Russian consumers.
La Linea Verde's headquarter in Manerbio (Brescia).
FP: Do you also export loose product?
Yes, we do. We export loose product all over Europe, for example baby leaf salad produced by our company Ortomad, situated near Salerno, one of the main baby leaf producers in Europe: all year long our farming company produces and markets packed unwashed produce mainly for Northern Europe, where low temperatures prevent vegetable growth for a period of several months.
Packaging
FP: How can you guarantee the freshness of the exported product?
Thanks to our speed of action, logistics, and quality of the raw material we are capable of reaching distant foreign markets, where our product arrives fresh. Every day La Linea Verde receives ultra fresh vegetables from its own farms, as well as from other qualified and selected horticultural companies, which are part of its quality chain. Our company relies on extremely fast workflows, and owns a refrigerated transport company with trucks, which deliver our products at a constant temperature to points of sale. Just think that some months ago a wide range of fresh cut salad could be found on Russian shelves!
Assortment of La Linea Verde's products.
FP: What would you like to tell potential foreign partners, who do not know La Linea Verde?
I suggest visiting our website (www.lalineaverde.it/en). It shows our reality, our skills, our structure and our way of working. On youtube you can also find our videos (www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLqaFtvpfEAJDbcqNj-p4rr2RAcm1f5_Ff): these emotional virtual tours are made for those who operate in this sector, describe La Linea Verde in a few minutes and explain why we are the perfect partner to increase the fresh cut market in Italy and abroad.
Find out more by visiting the company stand at Fruit Logistica in Berlin: Hall 7.2a, Stand B-04, where the company management will be happy to welcome you (click here to make an appointment).
For further info:
www.lalineaverde.it
www.dimmidisi.it