Sacco System has reorganised its Agro-food division – expanding product lines, fresh qualified personnel, and a new leader in its Business Unit. Dr Luigi Rossi, executive director of Agro-food, shares about the division’s new plans and strategies.
Dr Rossi, you have worked for decades in the dairy business. What prompted you to accept the challenge to change the sector and shift focus on the Agro-food world? What exactly is meant by Agro-food?
Dr Luigi Rossi: My dairy team and I have experienced exciting years, during which we have built a worldwide network by selecting the best distribution channels and sharing with them a partnership path that has allowed business developments in more than 110 countries around the world.
The new role of commercial director of the Agro-food Business Unit (BU) has a particularly important significance to me. By leveraging my accumulated experience, I will give my contribution to positioning Sacco System in new emerging sectors that foresees very important growth trends in the upcoming years.
The new Agro-food BU is made up of several market segments, all of which are nonetheless characterised by one important element they share, namely the innovation and enhancement of our microorganisms as an added value to our customers’ production processes.
The probiotics we offer for the plants and livestock sector allow, in addition to improving the health of plants and animals, to increase yields by reducing, or in many cases even eliminating, the use of antibiotics, pesticides, chemical fertilisers; we are fully aware of the relevance this element carries in the choice made by the final consumer.
The meat sector will also enjoy the benefit of improving the production and shelf life of its products through the use of our protective cultures.
The company is also extending its interest to other sectors such as fermented food vegetables, non-alcoholic beverages where we are experimenting with the culture that improve the aroma, especially in fruit-based ones. Another rapidly evolving segment concerns the bakery and the beer sector, where we will shortly experiment with mixtures composed of yeasts and bacteria that allow us to enhance the organoleptic properties
Research and development have always been a fundamental pillar for Sacco, also in light of our growth-oriented mentality. For what concerns the plant sector, the company has recently signed a collaboration agreement with a technological platform, Landlab, to cooperate in the testing of innovative microorganisms, both in vitro (greenhouse) and directly in the field.
You mention an impressively wide range of applications for the use of enzymes and probiotics: from meat to fish, bread, vegetables and fermented drinks. What prompted you to expand the product portfolio?
Dr Rossi: All our customers have as primary interest to produce with a high quality and safety standard, our process and protection crops allow to obtain a controlled fermentation while the protection ones act as a natural antagonist towards the unwanted flora that can give rise to deterioration of the product.
The cultures can also be used as an alternative to yeast for consumers who wish to switch to a diet without added yeasts; a real revolution for yeast-intolerant people, and even more so for gourmets, continuously in search of particular products reminiscing of the ancestral tastes of leavened bread and cakes.
The use of our crops has therefore become “transversal” to multiple sectors, ranging from the dairy sector to many other markets in the food and agri-food sector.
Which markets are you targeting?
Dr Rossi: We will address our offer to the B2B sector by designing with it, not only a commercial development, but also a development network consisting of qualified personnel who will accompany the product offer with technical application consultancy in the various industrial sectors. Our goal will be to complete the production chain starting from agriculture to get to the table for this reason we have joined the “from farm to fork” program.
What about the future?
Dr Rossi: I would say that there are already many applications we are working on right now, but we also know that it is essential to never stop and always try to innovate.
This article was published in Food & Beverage Asia June/July 2021 Issue.
