MILAN, Jul 18 (Class Editori) - Contri Spumanti, an historic company based in Verona, will land on the Alibaba marketplace, the largest B2B platform in the e-commerce world, active in 190 countries with over 160 million active operators. The agreement with UniCredit will provide the banking, logistic and web marketing services, necessary to access the platform of e-commerce with its own showcase.
The agreement between Contri and Unicredit is part of an understanding that Unicredit has launched within the Filiere Agroalimentari project promoted by UniCredit to increase growth, especially in foreign markets, of Italian companies in the sector.
The agreement also provides that UniCredit must support the agricultural companies that contribute to Contri Spumanti, enhancing their belonging to the supply chain. Through credit proposals and ad hoc services, developed to respond, on favorable terms, to the specific needs of the companies involved. The project will impact a potential catchment area of around 20 companies, located throughout the national territory.
Contri, which in 2018 developed a turnover of 98 million euros, doubling in the last three years, has the objective to increase its share of exports already attested to 55% of turnover.
"This dual partnership with UniCredit will cover both upstream relations, with suppliers, and downstream relations, with customers," explained Paolo Contri, CEO of the company and son of Luciano, who founded the company in the province of Verona back in 1959. The first operation will allow easier access to credit for wine producers (cooperatives and non-cooperatives), with a simplification of production financing both for fast-turnover products and, in particular, for those who need a very long term, even more than 2 years, such as the DOC Riserva wine.
"The second operation, a B2B classic but with the best operator in the world, is instead aimed at the development of two new brands dedicated to this operation, which will represent the variety of our production in the most suitable Italian wine producing areas," explained Contri.
"This partnership signed with Contri concerns two areas of strategic importance for UniCredit. On the one hand, it will make it possible to fully exploit its belonging to a production chain, with concrete benefits both downstream and upstream," specified Francesco Iannella, North East Regional Manager of UniCredit. "On the other hand, we will support the already effective action of Contri on foreign markets, making available an exclusive and incomparable partnership with Alibaba. The client companies which had access to this incredibly resourceful digital market have already registered a 20-30% business growth."
The understanding prescribes some benefits both for the companies involved in different stages of the production chain – through the funding offer with favorable commercial terms – and for the leading enterprises, providing them with a wide range of services – including support in investing for the qualitative upgrade of the chain, and the strengthening of the upgraded production system and of the monitoring and traceability operations.
Contri mainly produces spumante and sparkling wines in two production plants: one is the historical site in Cazzano di Tramigna (Verona), hosting the logistic department as well; and the other is in Campogalliano, close to Modena, focused on local wines and in particular on the Lambrusco IGT in its sparkling, sweet white, sweet rosé, sweet or dry red varieties. Recently, it has also added the Lambruschi DOC Modena, Sorbara, Salamino di Santa Croce, Grasparossa di Castelvetro, and Pignoletto DOC spumante to its portfolio.
"The king's name is Lambrusco, worth over 10 million. Then follows Prosecco, together with the sparkles of the spumante and of the white wines, accounting for 5 million. Finally, Russia, with its 4.5 million," said Contri to L'Arena, Verona's local newspaper. "These are the ingredients for success, a success built bottling over 520 thousand hectoliters of wine coming from every corner of Italy every year – that gives around 70 million bottles".
Contri built his success through exports, in particular toward Russia – since 1994, and peaking at a record 35 million bottles traded. "We had to turn down orders. Then the market slowed down, following the introduction of tags and the price increases. Our sparkling and sweet ones became a niche product".
At the moment, Contri exports toward 40 countries – in particular sweet spumante and red wines, and mainly in Japan and Asia. "The crisis brought some free promotion on our reference segment. We're talking about wines costing half the price and with a very nice flavor nonetheless. The company made all necessary efforts to achieve the highest possible quality without increasing the prices," explained the entrepreneur.
(Source:Class Editori)
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