When it comes to excellence in food, Sicily is one of the top regions in the world and that here at the Summer Fancy Food Show has an incredible variety of products, in fact, among the 400 companies present, many are Sicilian. We talk about this with Fabio Leoni, Director of the Marketing Service of the Department of Agriculture of the Region of Sicily.
“We have been participating in the Fancy Food in a big way with our companies for 3 years now, in an agreement with the SFA system, to bring our Sicilian excellence here and let them gain more commercial power than the North American circuit.
This year we brought 18 companies, mainly from the oil and derivatives sector, preserves, pistachio derivatives, peaches, our excellences that stand out above all for a discourse of quality.
Sicily is a treasure chest of flavors, culture, and gastronomic excellence. Even more important this year because Sicily in 2025 received recognition as a European gastronomic region, the first region to be able to boast this important award. We set up all the promotion both from last year and this year especially to be able to use this important recognition and make our companies known even more in the world, in Europe and in Sicily itself.
As for the North American market, our goal is to bring our flagship companies here. In the coming years, we will strengthen our intervention so that our products that are already well known here in North America can be even more appreciated, can find new market outlets considering the objective and difficulties that there are in international trade right now. Precisely for this reason, we have even more need, through our promotional message, to ensure that the added value of the entire chain and supply chain of agri-food products that then reaches the primary producer and processors, may not be diminished by any external elements, but rather may be increased through our work of promoting the brand of Sicily as well.”
Territory storytelling is then a key factor in a company’s success here in the United States.How, as a Marketing Department do you help companies connect just this storytelling, this storytelling with their marketing?
“We cannot limit ourselves only to the agri-food product, because behind the product there is a territory, there is a culture, our intention-and we are already doing this-as well as that of participating in these very important world agri-food fairs, one of the most important of which is this one in New York, is also to make the stakeholders come, to Sicily. When experts in the sector, besides appreciating the raw materials, the quality, the taste, the particularity of our products, they come to Sicily, they come to see the areas where they are produced, the tradition there, they fall even more in love, then for the famous tam-tam effect they spread elsewhere. This continuous exchange between the United States or other markets we will try to push it in the coming years, also considering the large Italian-American community that there is in these areas, we will make sure to make known this combination of culture and agri-food products that is already very developed.”
Sicily with 20 million Italian Americans in the world is one of the most sought-after regions, now there is also a flight with our partner Neos that also directly connects New York to Sicily. Given the steady increase in made-in-Italy demand, what are the prospects, despite the duties, with the increase in demand?
“We will see how this issue of duties evolves, we hope well, there are certain sectors that will definitely be affected such as wine, which is a high value-added sector that will definitely be affected. Our goal is to mitigate this impact of duties, so the focus is more and more on quality, to make our product known. Regarding the exchange between the United States and Sicily, now thanks to direct flights, Sicily is known in the world. We have seen in recent years an impressive explosion of both North American and European tourism, so Sicily has become among the most sought-after Italian places because they find everything here: monuments, natural beauty, biodiversity, millennial history, beautiful places, volcanoes, mountains, sea.
Then of course they taste our products, they fall in love with our products. Then we are trying to revive ancient grape varieties, ancient grains, which have organoleptic qualities, qualities that are also healthful, which the modern consumer, who is very interested in healthful qualities, in organic, likes very much. People are also willing to pay a little bit more in order to have access to these products that are not niche products, because they now have a certain diffusion, but they have characteristics that are not characteristic of mass products. The consumer is looking for those products that can do well, that have a tradition behind them, that have adequate nutritional values, that are guaranteed more than organic, that are also guaranteed by traceability or control systems.”
The article Fancy Food, Fabio Leoni: “Sicily’s treasure chest of flavors, culture and gastronomic excellence is increasingly loved by the U.S.” comes from TheNewyorkese.
