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Home > Spotlight
CALLIPO, QUALITY TUNA LEADS PACKAGING REVOLUTION WITH "NUDE LOOK"
Nearly a century of history in the name of tradition: Giacinto Callipo Conserve Alimentari SpA (www.callipo.com), founded 94 years ago in Calabria by the great-grandfather of Filippo Callipo, current president of a group comprising 7 companies, has never abandoned its local roots. The canned and glass-jarred tuna sold on the national and international market by the Calabrese company all come out of the Maierato factory - 34,000 square metres of which 9,000 are covered - built only a few miles away from the original factory of Mariana di Pizzo.
President, what are the reasons behind this choice? Is it possible that olive oil tuna, whether in cans or glass jars, can only be produced in Italy if it is to meet your standards for quality?
Our handicraft is in certain ways unique: highly specialised, and able to treat the product with care and passion. For this very reason the production of Callipo tuna is carried out in Maierato. The level of excellence we reach is a result of the coexistence of the traditional handicraft, used only in those phases in which it truly adds quality, and of automated production systems which use state-of-the-art machinery. It is for this reason that I do not think it is worth outsourcing to Asia as some competitors have done: working techniques employed abroad do not result in the same product as ours.
Nevertheless, it is undeniable that the cost of work in Asia is substantially lower than it is in Italy. Do you still maintain, even considering this aspect, that any outsourcing is unwarranted?
If we moved out of Italy we would defeat the advantage that allows us to keep up with our competitors: despite having 200 employees, we compete against players running four times the production volume compared to our 6,500 tonnes per year. We do not focus on volume but on quality, certified by our pricing which puts us in a higher market bracket. The extra cost is justified by the fact that the production is carried out entirely in Italy, which carries a significant premium due to the higher labour costs. Our highly skilled workers are paid an hourly rate of approximately EUR16/hour, i.e. four to five times the hourly wage paid abroad.
Quality is a precondition, therefore, to be matched, perhaps, to product innovation. This ambition, however, seems impossible in the case of canned tuna and seafood products.
Indeed it is difficult to innovate a product which is the same as it has been for more than a century. But we figured out that we could work on the packaging. We were the first ones to propose tuna in glass jars: we thought that a product that is beautiful to look at would also be easier to sell. And so it was: turnover increased exponentially in the past ten years (in 2006 the company closed the year with a profit of 33.8 million euros). And our 'provocation' has now become the norm: many competitors now have also converted to glass jars. In addition to the packaging revolution, we concentrated on the sole possible product innovation: new combinations between tuna and other food, trying to enhance Italian gastronomic excellence even in this area. Thus were born those products based on tuna and Calabrian specialities ('nduja - a spicy sausage, red onion and sundried tomatoes) and on Italian food, such as genovese pesto and artichokes.
A diversification which is just getting started. In the next few months, one of Filippo Callipo's projects - which he has been working on for years - will kick off: after tuna fish, he wants to give the world the traditional Italian ice cream from Pizzo Calabro.
The trademark was registered in 1988, but the idea was developed about 25 years ago. Pizzo Calabro, Callipo tuna's birthplace, is also famous for its traditional ice cream. Our objective is to bring it all over Italy and even abroad. The factory, which will be inaugurated at the end of the summer, will be running at full regime in 2008: it is a medium to large factory, with a daily production capacity of 8 to 9 tonnes of ice cream.
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