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

Giuseppe Caprotti at OSA360, in front of 2000 entrepreneurs, in Milan on 8 November 2024

At OSA 360, the biggest event for entrepreneurs in Milan, I had the pleasure of telling an audience of more than 2,000 entrepreneurs, producers and retailers about the origins of Esselunga and all the innovations I introduced in the company up to 2004, inspired by the themes of my book ‘Le Ossa dei Caprotti’. It was exciting to share this vision, which continues to evolve through the initiatives of the Guido Venosta Foundation

From I to We: Human Resources

With the enormous development of the non-food part and the emergence of marketing, we create hundreds of jobs, to which more will be added in food purchasing and quality control. My rule is to move from 'I' to 'we': and results pay off, because an internal survey in 2003 conducted by CIRM shows that in two years the proportion of those declaring themselves 'satisfied' or 'very satisfied' has risen from 49 per cent to 72.1 per cent.

The birth of marketing at Esselunga and two Armando Testa advertising campaigns

In 1994, under my impetus, the Esselunga marketing department took shape and I became its first director. Marketing was structured to manage the following areas: promotions – including the whole Fidaty world – the call centre, press office, market research, supermarket space, advertising