The Esselunga brand: its beginnings and development up to 2003

In 1995, we are also able to achieve profitability for all our products and categories with industrial accounting: this allows us to better target contracts, through buyers and sales in supermarkets, with the help of the marketing department. The three functions - purchasing, marketing and sales - are fundamental to the implementation and profitability of the company's brand, whose operating result, from the 1990s to the early 2000s, is multiplied by 2.5

Negotiations: Coca-Cola and Barilla

I made peace with Barilla after more than ten years of quarrelling. In the end in 1999 we gained, and a lot. An exceptional turnaround (plus 458 per cent in two years), in a very short time . Coca-Cola, in the late 1990s, came to Esselunga with absolutely unacceptable commercial conditions. In the end, the Antitrust Authority agreed and the American company was condemned to pay a fine of 15 million euros

Two mismatches in the Caprotti story: Januaria Piromallo, Marchioness of the Dukes etc., and Maria Cristina Busi Ferruzzi, ‘Princess of Coca-Cola

The story of Maria Busi Ferruzzi is reported in the book ‘Le Ossa dei Caprotti’ because it exemplifies how a supplier can become a servant. On Januaria Piromallo, Marchioness Capece Piscinelli di Montebello of the Dukes of Capracotta, on the other hand, I have drawn a pious veil