“Product quality and particular attention to food safety” - the Nocera Inferiore and Gragnano industrial district, whose outstanding product is tomatoes (which are also industrially processed into sauces and derivatives), reacted to the crisis with a simple and effective formula: to focus entirely on the recognised value of Italian production as a solid guarantee for exporters of quality products. “The food sector,” explains district president, Aniello Pietro Torino, “particularly that of vegetable preserves, has always been fairly anti-cyclical, nevertheless the burden of the crisis is making itself felt, both on an economic and a financial level. The vegetable preserves industry, in fact, has been affected by high energy prices and the rising costs of raw materials and packaging.”

In this current phase, the companies in the district, who are strongly export-oriented, “are placing even more emphasis on exports,” Torino affirms. However, to operate profitably in foreign markets, the quality and intrinsic value of “Made in Italy" products, while certainly necessary factors, are not sufficient. The Nocera and Gragnano District also has other features that enable it to compete from an advantaged position. For example, it relies on state-of-the-art processing systems, “which are one of the strong points of the companies in our district,” the president underlines. This production context, in which the presence of water and fertile soil, aside from producing a huge variety of vegetables, has also favoured the establishment of industrial activities for processing them, also has many other characteristic strong points. One of these is the fact that the industrial district and the horticultural distribution chain are not recent developments but well-established realities. The success of the local development agency and the existence of a regional agricultural agreement have also created structural conditions enabling local companies to grow.

Today the Nocera-Sarno food production realities stand out thanks to their highly specialised production and adequate level of technology, factors that have been able to create a fertile environment with an advanced production culture, based not only tomatoes but also pasta and textile fibres. Exports amount to about 50% of the district's annual production, with its main reference markets being Germany, France and the United Kingdom in Europe and the United States, Japan and Australia at the intercontinental level. In view of the various strong points on which the sector relies, its prospects for the coming future remain positive, without, however, ignoring the critical factors that have to be faced, beginning with a crisis that is still affecting companies. Moreover “starting from 2011,” the president, Torino, explains, “the PAC (Common Agricultural Policy) scenarios will change and we will enter a completely new regime, the consequences of which are not easy to predict. We should also not underestimate the growing international competition, a problem that is not insignificant for companies that are strongly export-oriented, like those of the preserves sector.”