“If the situation continues, consumers could see higher prices for bread within six to ten weeks, for eggs within a few months, and for pork and broiler chicken within six months, estimates Raj Patel, a food systems expert at the Lyndon B. Johnson School of Public Affairs.”
My speech will also start from some of my experiences at Esselunga, where for many years I worked on the development of projects that accompanied an important phase in the evolution of Italian distribution: the Superstores, the Fìdaty card, Esselunga at Home, the ESD purchasing centre, the development of organic products, together with the introduction of the company’s first social report. The aim, of course, is not to look back. Those experiences serve above all as a starting point to reflect on how distribution, the role of retailer brands and the relationship between industry and retail are changing today.
McKinsey estimates that retailers with autonomous AI systems are growing 50 per cent faster than competitors. Cognizant projects $4.4 trillion in additional spending over the next five years from customers embracing AI. Agents are not an investment in the future of retail, they are already the present, and those who delay to act today risk having to make up for a hard-to-fill disadvantage tomorrow
The government, on energy, is in a huge conflict of interest, which is why prices do not fall: Snam, Italgas and Terna beat Microsoft, Alphabet (Google) and Meta (Facebook). Italy’s publicly controlled companies that transport or distribute gas and electricity to citizens and businesses are more profitable than some of the world’s largest, most technologically advanced and important companies in the business of the future: cloud, data centres and artificial intelligence. In short, Big Energy beats Big Tech
