Sustainability, innovation and top quality: the Marcianise Production Plant celebrates 50 record-breaking years
9 November 2018
Sustainable agriculture is the key to guaranteeing that future generations have access to good health and quality food that promotes the growth of our economies and respects the environment. Indeed, this is one of the main objectives contained in the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, an impressive plan of action for people, the planet and prosperity, signed in September 2015 by the governments of the 193 member states of the UN, including Italy.
According to the recent data contained in the 2018 report of the ASviS, Italian Alliance for Sustainable Development, while it is true that Italy is experiencing a serious delay in achieving many of the goals listed in the program, this is not the case for sustainable agriculture, a resource on which many companies and institutions are increasingly focusing.
An excellent practice, to be reinforced as time goes by, accompanied by another piece of encouraging news: according to ISMEA (Italian Service Institute for the Agro-Food Market), the agro-food sector in Italy is withstanding the current crisis better than those in other European countries. The reduction in the number of workers employed in the sector over the last 10 years is lower (-6.7% compared with the average fall of -17.5% in the EU) and it halted from 2013 on, even recovering 3% in the last 5 years.
These data indicate how the agro-food sector is increasingly playing a key role in the dynamics of social and economic development in the member states. They also indicate the growing importance of creating a sustainable agriculture focused on implementing models designed to produce high quality, healthy food, also thanks to the new technologies in use; to respect the environment, also thanks to the technical empowerment of production efficiency; in tune with the economic and social contexts whose development they must help to sustain.
Basically: people, health, environment and technologies, the pillars on which Barilla has always focused, promoting initiatives and building “symbolic” places such as the legendary Marcianise Plant in Caserta, in which the attention paid to the quality of the products is combined with hard work, efficiency, quality and innovation.
THE MARCIANISE PRODUCTION PLANT CELEBRATES 50 YEARS OF SUCCESSES
Built in 1968 and purchased by the Barilla Group in 1972, the Production Facility in Marcianise is today the largest international plant for the production of special shape pasta made of durum wheat semolina and it is celebrating 50 years in the business with some record-breaking figures: not just 10 production lines and 140 employees but an estimated production for 2018 equal to 99,300 tons of pasta under the Barilla, Voiello and Academia Barilla brands, or 700,000 packs of pasta per day for 130 different products.
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The plant, located in the province of Caserta, can be defined as a structure of excellence for at least two reasons:
The first is that it is a leading player in the bid to reduce environmental waste: from 2010 until today it has registered a reduction of over 36% in the consumption of water per ton of product, a 23% reduction in its CO2eq emissions and, at the same time, an increase in the percentage of waste recycled, reaching 90%.
The second reason concerns the importance assigned by Barilla to the use of quality raw materials, which has led to the company producing the iconic Pasta Voiello made with 100% Italian Aureo wheat right here in the Marcianise plant.
PASTA VOIELLO AND AUREO HEAT: TOP QUALITY AND RESPECT FOR THE ENVIRONMENT
The pasta of the historical brand from Torre Annunziata founded in 1879 and purchased by Barilla in 1973 is a true excellence: it is exclusively produced with Aureo durum wheat, a 100% Italian wheat variety with a high protein content (no less than 15.5%, on a range that goes from a minimum of 12 to a maximum of 15) and strong gluten component that qualify it as a “Top Quality” grain.
Aureo wheat was selected in 2009 in collaboration with the company “Produttore Sementi Bologna”, in a bid to obtain a variety of seeds with extremely high technical parameters, such as its ability to be cultivated with smaller amounts of water.
This ambitious challenge was soon won: Aureo durum wheat and therefore Voiello pasta, boast all of this: excellent raw materials and respect for the environment.
Barilla has decided to acknowledge the historical importance of the Marcianise plant and its top pasta by celebrating its 50 years in the business with two initiatives that look to the future and the new generations, while remembering the brand’s history: it is offering an annual scholarship, to be awarded to a young graduate in Agricultural Sciences and Technologies of the Federico II University of Naples, and has supported the creation of a company novel* that reconstructs the history of the Plant and, at the same time, a piece of Italian history.
“The Factory is the heart of Barilla and People are our soul, so what happens in our workplaces ultimately becomes a kind of magic that does not limit itself to the precious labor that goes on there, but instead endows every single product with the irreplaceable spirit of the people who strive to produce it with passion.” Luca Barilla, Vice-Chairman of Barilla Group.
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