Quick Take — A memento of the Esselunga that was: Esselunga organic vegetable stock preparation made by accountant Brambilla

Vegetable stock cube: Salt is always the first ingredient, with a percentage varying more or less from 35% to 50%, value

Esselunga, in addition to the ‘standard’ granulated vegetable stock (with 34% salt and 20% glutamate) has the Esselunga organic stock preparation, in which dehydrated vegetables are at the top of the ingredient list.

This is an exception: normally the various vegetable stock cube references consist largely of salt and glutamate; the overall picture is unhealthy .

It is pleasing that so many years after the launch of Esselunga Bio in 1999, the healthy role of some of the products in this line is recognised.

Accountant Vittorino Brambilla, senior buyer at Esselunga at the time – on my left below – was the architect.

Quick Take — The retailer’s brand reaches 50% in the main European markets, setting a new record. In Italy, however, it remains at 36%

According to Circana, growth is set to accelerate in 2026: inflation and Ai-driven shopping will favour the cheapest products for the same benefits …

circana’s analysis finds that retailers have managed to keep prices low and quality high. MDDs are intercepting health and lifestyle trends, offering premium offerings and innovative product launches with more dynamism than national brands. Retailers’ strategy of targeting social media content at younger shoppers who are less loyal to traditional brands is also playing a key role in sustaining demand…

Below: Esselunga, under my leadership, was already at around 35% private label in 2003 (thanks to the Esselunga, Naturama, Esselunga Bio and Fidel brands, the first price created to combat discount stores).

Quick Take — Banana cultivation: a pesticide paradise

Banana plantations stretch across Ecuador, Costa Rica, Peru, the Philippines and Colombia: territories where the climate is perfect for growing the fruit… and pests. To protect the crops, pesticides and herbicides are used in quantities that a European farmer would not see in an entire career.

All companies claim to follow ‘sustainability’ programmes, but the truth is that a banana at 1.49 €/kg cannot guarantee fair wages, cover ocean transports and ensure clean agriculture. Someone along the supply chain always pays the price: often the health of those who work… and those who consume

Below:

1 some of the pesticides mentioned by ‘Guess who’s coming to dinner’ (Rai3) were also found in organic bananas and are banned in the EU but enter it because there are no reciprocity clauses between South America and Europe.

This problem could be changed by a proper implementation of the Mercosur treaty .

2 the label of the Esselunga Bio Ctm Altromercatobananas.

Read also this article on Esselunga private label bananas and in the GD, in general. On pesticides you can read here.

Compiled 10 December 2025, updated 19 March 2026

Factory Positioning: ‘MDD – IDM Strategies and Market

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.

Quick Take — At the supermarket, one in four products is Italian. Over 11.6 billion spent

Gs1 Italy, in 2024 the basket volume marks -0.7%. The most widespread ‘indicator’ of Italianness – the economic report points out – is the tricolour flag, present on over 16 thousand products with positive annual sales in value and stable in volume. It is followed by the claims ‘100% Italian’, which remains stable in value but loses 1.5% in volume, and ‘produced in Italy’, with negative sales in value and volume. Analysts point out that “2024 was not an easy year for European geographical indications either: in the basket of 4,888 references and 1.6 billion euro turnover of PDO, DOC and DOCG products, only PDO references record positive sales in value (5.8%) and volume (2.7%)” for a total of almost 803 million euro.

Flags with the tricolour no longer work. So says someone who put them on Esselunga organic products 25 years ago. Also because they often ‘don’t beat inflation’ and, without proper labelling on the product’s characteristics, they could simply be ‘Italian sounding’. Read also : The false myth of ‘100% Italian’ food

Giuseppe Caprotti’s social commitment at Esselunga: caring for the environment, for people

The one related to care and concern for the environment is a project that goes back a long way, to the 1980s, the first years I spent at Esselunga, and began with organic and natural products in general. It is also the project I am most fond of because it had a soul, a social purpose, as well as a business purpose.