In 2004, increasingly persistent rumours leaked out that my father Bernardo wanted to sell the supermarket that had made him a legend in the large-scale retail sector, spinning off the real estate part of the controlling company and selling the Esselunga shares. By this time, I have already been deprived of my powers (my delegations have been taken away and most of ‘my’ managers – and not only them – have been fired or are about to be fired). This news is almost contemporaneous with a proposal of mine, in October 2004, to buy the majority share of Esselunga that, at that time, was in the hands of my two sisters, Violetta and Marina, a proposal that was rejected. At this point there was talk of four other offers, in particular one from the American colossus Walmart (or rather Wal-mart, as it was spelled at the time); to complicate matters further, it is not clear with what proxies and of what value Bernardo could proceed with the sale – I will not give mine. All that was missing were the Coops, the powerful red cooperatives, naturally seen by Bernardo as smoke in the eyes: to give just one striking example, I remember how in the early 2000s, at Assolombarda, my father took my father at his word – “You don’t pay taxes and not even motorway tolls!” – Vincenzo Tassinari, President of Coop Italia (the Centrale delle Cooperative di Consumatori Italiane), in one of his scenes in front of hundreds of embarrassed people.
And Coop, indeed, arrives. ‘In such a confused situation, the Coops, in the person of Aldo Soldi, come forward. A not very astute move, which will be among the reasons why in 2007 Bernardo will publish his book Sickle and Cart.” (CAPROTTI, Le Ossa dei Caprotti family, p. 275). In fact, following the news of Esselunga’s sale to foreigners, Aldo Soldi, since 2004 president of ANCC – Coop, the National Association of Consumer Cooperatives, expressed his interest in buying it, because a move into foreign hands would have been a disaster for the Italian food economy (see Esselunga interests us too). Even Tassinari, whom I saw again when I was a consultant for Despar (2009-2010), confessed to me that, in his opinion, Soldi’s move had not been the best..
At the end of this excursus on the Caprotti family and the Coop, after having seen the battle on the market, from typical to organic products, from the fight against the tax privileges of the red cooperatives to the latter’s move to buy Esselunga, ‘After all that happened between Esselunga and Coop following my father’s publication of the book Sickle and Cart, with the long trail of court cases and political controversies, it may seem almost a twist of fate but my great-grandfather Bernardo Caprotti was among the founders of two mutual aid cooperatives. The first was founded in 1905, the second in 1920, with the aim of ‘benefiting the economy of the consumers of Albiate, Triuggio and Sovico, buying in bulk to supply consumer goods to the retail trade at the best possible conditions in special outlets’. The outlets, which between the end of the 19th and the beginning of the 20th century had been set up with the aim of supplying basic consumer goods to workers, peasants and labourers, would later turn into the supermarkets of the future. The Albiate cooperative still exists, it has four supermarkets and since 2012 it has joined the League of Cooperatives, moving from the orbit of the ‘white’ co-ops to the ‘red’ ones, adherents of the Coop Italia purchasing powerhouse, fought by both myself and my father. In Albiate he has a small supermarket, where I sometimes go shopping.” (CAPROTTI, Le Ossa dei Caprotti family, p. 33).
Bibliography:
[M.S.S.], Soldi (Coop): ‘Esselunga also interests us‘, in ‘Corriere della Sera’, 27 September 2004(https://archivio.corriere.it).
