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Stainless steel valley, a gleaming district
Rome - (Adnkronos Multimedia) - An area straddling the provinces of Treviso and Belluno in the Veneto region of North-Eastern Italy has earned itself the nickname of Inox Valley [Stainless Steel Valley], due to its extraordinary concentration of small and medium-sized industries dedicated to the processing of stainless steel for the manufacture of systems and machinery for bars, restaurants, hotels and canteens.
The area stretches from the town of Conegliano to Vittorio Veneto, and is characterised by a series of important businesses working in an absolutely unique manufacturing sector, that of food service equipment: workbenches and cupboards for food processing, cookers, ovens and dishwashers. The area boasts around one thousand businesses, and provides a total of around 10 thousand jobs. Two thirds of the companies in Stainless Steel Valley have between 10 and 50 employees; three quarters of them have a turnover of between 5 and 50 million euros per year; exports represent around 46 percent of the overall turnover and are aimed above all at the countries of the European Union.
The historical heart of the district is the area of Conegliano and Vittorio Veneto, where the first businesses were set up in the Sixties and Seventies for producing semifinished products and components for the two major companies which had been a local presence for decades: Zoppas and Zanussi. Over the years, with manufacturing innovation and as the types of products evolved, an integrated dynamic industrial district was created, which became known as Stainless Steel Valley.
The system of businesses in the area started out with the development of the white goods sector (washing machines, refrigerators, cookers and dishwashers aimed at the mass market), but this field today represents only a part of an economic fabric which has gradually expanded and branched out, particularly into the production of systems for catering. The district is also highly integrated with related activities (such as that of door and window manufacture) and with the nearby furniture manufacturing districts of Solighese and Livenza, and acts as a hinge between the regions of Veneto and Friuli.
Most people in the stainless steel processing sector work for the businesses located in the industrial areas of Conegliano and Vittorio Veneto, where two large companies with a key role in the creation of the industrial fabric of the Veneto region have had a determining role and influence since the beginning of the 20th century: Zanussi and Zoppas. Zanussi (still the largest factory in the area, even if currently being sized down), was established in 1916, when Antonio Zanussi, the owner of a small workshop producing stoves in Pordenone, began to put his goods on the market. Today, the products of the plant at Susegana (TV) are aimed towards different markets than those of the other local companies, and contribute to the growth of the district above all in terms of specialised processes linked to local subcontracting. The story is however different for the division of the business dealing with food service equipment, the large-scale plant division, which is more integrated with the growth of local manufacturing, both because of its interest in common markets, and because of its use of the territory's supply networks.
The other leading business in the area is Zoppas. Established in around 1925, the company's history is very similar to that of the nearby Zanussi, so much so that their stories met in the early 1970s with a strategic merger in which Zanussi took over Zoppas. Then there was the slow consolidation of the area's small and medium-sized businesses, starting out as subcontractors for the two giants in the electrical appliances sector, and then moving towards the production of systems specifically dedicated to catering, with a particular eye to international markets. The end result is an industrial fabric which is now consolidated and perfectly integrated in an area which is one of the great phenomena of economic, productive and social development in post-war Italy.
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