Interview with Dr. Lucia Forte, Managing Director of Oropan, a traditional Puglian bakery products company.

Please describe the identity, history and values that underpin your company.

Oropan was founded on the courage and entrepreneurial intuition of Vito Forte, who started his entrepreneurial dream over 60 years ago. At the age of 11 he was working as an apprentice at the oldest Mediaeval bakery in the city of Altamura, the ‘Lioness of Puglia’. At the age of 19 he took over the bakery, and with his firm commitment to research, innovation and development, gradually turned it into an industry that currently produces 600 quintals of bread a day, employs 135 people, has a turnover of 25,000,000 euros a year and is a leader in the Italian bakery sector. From a small company with a predominantly multi-regional market, Oropan has become a leading player in the bakery products segment and is now aiming for internationalisation in a systematic and structured way. It is one of the top 5 companies in the Italian agri-food sector for turnover, number of employees, market share and level of technological innovation that it has introduced. In short, with its modern facilities and advanced technologies, Oropan has conquered the national and international markets with its extraordinary ability to offer tasty, nutritionally-balanced everyday products. Oropan brings the regional cuisine and bread-making tradition of its native Altamura in Puglia to all five continents.

If we want to maintain the consistent leadership that we enjoy over the long term, we cannot simply rely on a numbers-generating system to support our mission, our vision and our business philosophy.

The fundamental value required to generate trust, reliability and consensus that consequently leads to development of the company and the community is people - the ’human capital’ that keeps the company’s values alive and helps it to continuously and systematically evolve in line with its defined objectives: customer satisfaction, a sense of belonging, integrity, health and safety, responsibility, tradition and innovation.

What is the USP for your products/services and what are the reasons for their succes?

Oropan products bearing the "FORTE" mark are the result of ancient recipes made with technologically-advanced production systems to ensure high-quality standards with excellent added service. They represent tradition and innovation and respond to modern lifestyles and the emerging trends of an evolved market aiming for a healthy, balanced diet. Thanks to new production techniques that have been studied and tested over years of research and experimentation, Oropan can now distribute bread to arrive freshly-baked on tables all over the world from its factory in Puglia, all down to innovation of processes and products. Through innovation, the distances between Oropan’s premises in the South of Italy and the rest of the world can be disregarded, due to the extension of shelf life. Oropan's production systems are meticulously certified. Ours was one of the first companies in Italy to obtain the prestigious voluntary Quality System certifications through compliance with the highest international standards. One of Oropan's competitive strategies is product differentiation based on origin and tradition. All our products are made with carefully-selected fine durum wheat semolina and the exclusive, ancient mother yeast that has been in company founder Vito Forte’s possession since 1956, which gives the long, slow, natural leavening that keeps FORTE brand bread fresh, fragrant and highly digestible for several days. The distinctive advantages it brings to the product and the high level of service it adds, such as a good quality-price ratio, are what make FORTE products distinctive and highly appealing.

What are your growth strategies, challenges and vision for the future?

The company philosophy is based on three cornerstones:

• constant research and innovation of process and product;
• distinctiveness of tradition and origin;
• enhancement of human resources.

These are the factors for competitive success that have allowed us to achieve the commercial, economic and financial objectives we have set ourselves. Future projects include a programme of dimensional growth, evolution of structural and organisational know-how, and innovation of entrepreneurial and managerial culture for development of the selected national and international geographic markets. These growth paths will help us maintain and develop our positive business, patrimonial, financial, commercial and employment performance in line with what we have achieved over the past 10 years. For this reason, Oropan focuses its business strategy on the improvement and innovation of corporate culture, which is fundamental for success in the global market in our product segment. This represents the distinctive activity, values and advantages of our entire business system and perceived as such by all stakeholders, which determine the competitive advantage we have which must be maintained and developed over time.

How far does the company consider innovation a strategy for growth?

Pursuing the balance between tradition and innovation is the central element of our differentiation strategy. Our R&D activities, carried out in collaboration with leading academic and scientific partners, are aimed at developing traditional bakery products with innovative features to satisfy the increasingly dynamic consumers who are viewing the sector in a more unstructured way than they did in the past. One example of how to bring innovation to a traditional product like bread is expressed in the ‘Forte Classico Pane di Semola with 50% less salt’, which has the taste of classic, traditional bread but with less salt, so you don’t have to give up the pleasure of good bread. This product was the focus of a clinical-scientific research project conducted with two major Puglian universities and tested on hypertensive patients. The results demonstrated that the bread contributes to improving the health status of hypertensive patients and prevents the harmful effects of a hypersonic diet. ’Functional consumption’ is one of the lines that we are commited to. Equally important for us is the theme of ’responsible consumption‘: bakery items produced using clean energy, supplied in recyclable packaging, and that take into account the overall environmental impact associated with their use. In this regard, Oropan promotes thoughtful and informed choices among all stakeholders, and pursues social and environmental objectives to meet both consumer needs and the well-being of the community. Finally, we continue our commitment to ’ethical consumption’, which translates into a mission to minimise food waste by supplying products in formats that reflect customer consumption patterns. Products that respond to these three macro trends have great potential for success in the market.

What does "business internationalisation" mean for you today? Exports, outsourcing, partnership, or a combination of these?

For Oropan, internationalisation means export, implemented through an international development programme that pursues the following objectives:

1. diversification of target markets: after 5 years of international planning, Oropan products are now present in 20 countries worldwide;
2. systematic introduction of the brand and new products in the selected markets;
3. contributing to the international dissemination of Puglian and Italian culture and tradition, which is recognised as being of great historical, cultural and gastronomic value, through bakery products;
4. using new marketing and service tools that will translate the international guidelines defined in our strategic development plan into effective operational activity.

What are your most important markets today? And what markets are you looking at with greater interest in the medium to long term?

The most important markets we have chosen are those that are particularly receptive to Oropan products due to existing  historical-cultural connections and gastronomic similarity; the European and American markets specifically. However, our plans for expansion in the future are directed towards research into the possibility of subsequent penetration in the Asian markets.

What was the most important project or time for your company and for consolidating it?

One of the most strategic phases for Oropan was the one in which we decided to design and implement two industrial plans aimed at achieving three strategic objectives:

• Qualitative: diversification and expansion by innovating the product portfolio through high-tech processes, to introduce efficiency in every management phase, raise production levels and standardise the high-quality design.
• Quantitative: increasing production capacity per hour and per employee.
• Internationalisation: planning and implementation of a medium-term internationalisation programme.

The performances achieved are positive and in line with the defined objectives in respect of commercial, economic, financial and employment indicators.

What does it mean for you to be part of the Elite Growth project?

We entered the Elite programme in order to increase our industrial, financial, organisational and managerial skills, which are essential to confront the challenges of the evolved, sophisticated, globalised national and international markets and to establish an important pillar for dimensional growth, development and evolution. This path will be a fundamental element that we will prioritise for change and evolution in our 1) business culture 2) organisational and managerial system 3) strategies for innovation and entrepreneurial development, to raise our level of competitiveness in Italy and around the world. A heartfelt thank you to Mediocredito Italiano for believing in Oropan and for supporting us on this ambitious path.