Italy took the podium for Food & Beverage technology exports

Published: 03/11/2022

Yes, the land of the sunshine and good food takes the world top spot for export of food & beverage packaging technology and machines worth 1.722 million Euro.

This is what emerges from the Nomisma Machinery Observatory, in a research on export data of this industry, carried out on occasion of the Cibus Tec Forum (October 25-26), exhibition and conference about trends of Food Technology, recently held at Fiere di Parma.

A double key interpretation

An important figure for Italy, with a double key of interpretation: resilience of Italian exporting companies which, during and after the pandemic, registered higher export growth rates than those of other comparable major economies. Moreover, innovation.

In international statistics on innovation Italy is not among the most dynamic countries; however, the high value of export, in particular of instrumental goods, food industry and packaging machinery – not to mention food, fashion and design – shows that the products of the Italian manufacturing industry are sought after and appreciated all over the world. It means in Italy there is innovation and, moreover, applied. We should only believe in it more.

Italy, number one exporting country of Food & Beverage technology

In the first half of 2022 Italy exported technology for the food & beverage industry worth 1,722 million Euro, with a year-to-year change of +7.8% confirming its position as a world leading exporting country, ahead of Germany, the Netherlands and the USA.

In the first half of 2022 the major importers of Italian technology were the USA (174 million Euro, +4.2%), followed by France (136 million Euro, +8%) and Germany (121 million Euro, +24.8%).

The most exported types of machinery for the food & beverage industry were the following:

equipment for preparing and dispensing hot beverage or cooking/heating food (595 million Euro)

bakery and pastry machinery, or dough preparation machines (338 million Euro)

machinery for industrial making of food and beverage (224 million Euro).

Moreover, number two exporting country of packaging machinery

As regards packaging machinery export, in the first half of 2022 Italy ranks second in the international classification, after Germany (2,689 million Euro), worth 2,500 million Euro (though -5.4% year-to-year); China, the Netherlands and the USA follow in the rank.

Again, the USA are the number one importer with 373 million Euro (though worth -6.21%), followed by France with 217 million Euro (rapidly growing with +20.8%) and Germany with 172 million Euro.

Export progresses quickly, however the lasting Russia-Ukraine conflict creates new challenges italian companies have to face

According to the Foreign Trade Report presented by ICE last September, in 2021 the Italian export marked a 516 billion record (+18% compared to 2020 and +7.5% against 2019) and in the first months of 2022 has grown by 22.4% compared to the same period last year.

However, the 22.4% long-term growth compared to the same period last year, has to take into account the inflation rate of as much as 20 percentage points, going back to some decades ago, when it affected the global economic development.

The long-term growth in the first five months of the year concerns almost all sectors. For many of them it is largely positive even compared to 2019: food and beverage (+18.8% compared to the same period in 2021 and as much as +31.2% compared to the same period in 2019), metal sector products (+29.2% compared to the same period in 2021 and +44.5% compared to the same period in 2019), chemicals (+28.5% compared to the same period in 2021 and +38.2% compared to the same period in 2019) and electric appliances (+16.6% compared to the same period in 2021 and +24.9% compared to the same period in 2019).