Have the red coops become sovereignist Meloni trend?
Coop calls, does the government respond? In the latest report, the large-scale retail trade giant highlights how inflation and loss of purchasing power are pushing more and more Italians into discount chains, to the detriment of food sovereignty so dear to the executive…
It's a discount alert. Italians increasingly prefer to turn to the so-called "sub-brands" for shopping, in the clear need to save, given the increase in the cost of living. An alarm that should sound in the ears of the executive, given that it indicates that a large segment of Italians are saving even on what they put on the table but if this were not the case, the Italian large-scale distribution, very agitated, will bring the issue under the windows of Palazzo Chigi. Also because discount is synonymous with foreign chains, mostly German.
THE GOVERNMENT IS EXPECTED AT THE TEACHERS
These are, in a nutshell, the main data of the 2023 Coop Report on the consumption and lifestyles of Italians. A heterogeneous relationship, which embraces themes such as the irruption of artificial intelligence into our lives and climate change, through which the large-scale retail giant does not limit itself to photographing the current situation, putting pressure on the government with its own requests. It is impossible not to see it with the slide entitled "The sad decline of food identity" which should tickle the sovereignist palates of those who sit in the executive today, in an unprecedented alliance – or at least attempted dialogue – between the red cooperative and the right-centric executive.
In just four years, the report states, the advance of low cost has grown in Italy by 4.1 points, devouring 23 percent of the market. And according to Coop-Nomisma data, 8 out of 10 Italians will turn to discount stores more continuously in the next 12/18 months to mitigate the effect of inflation. Again for Coop, the loss of purchasing power jumped by 15 points. And the consequences are precisely the need to tighten the purse strings. Discount chains are therefore celebrating.
An alarm reiterated by the majority of food and beverage managers interviewed in the survey, according to whom the discount will be the distribution channel that will benefit from the best growth in the same forecast period. This is also confirmed by the very fresh data from August: while distribution fell by 0.2% in volumes, discounters grew by +1.7%.
TOWARDS THE GERMANIZATION OF EXPENDITURE
If we add to all this the 15-point drop in Italian consumption in the fruit and vegetable departments over the last two years (a non-random drop, given that at the same time the average price of the goods on display has risen by 16 points) and that in the next year/year and a half many consumers fear that they will be forced to further reduce purchases of fruit and vegetables to make ends meet, the tenor of the appeal that Coop forwards to the government is clear: not only the fate of large-scale retail trade is at stake, but also the stability of the so-called "Mediterranean diet" (which has the great variety of what is put on the plates as its main strength, while saving forces us to always consume the same food) and above all the national identity which also and above all passes through sovereignty food. Will the autarkic government be able to allow the Germanization of the shopping chain? Coop's appeal has been launched, it remains to be seen whether the executive will respond.
This is a machine translation from Italian language of a post published on Start Magazine at the URL https://www.startmag.it/economia/le-coop-rosse-sono-diventate-sovraniste-tendenza-meloni/ on Fri, 08 Sep 2023 09:16:14 +0000.