FederSalus today presented in streaming the VI sector survey on the food supplements supply chain, in the presence of companies, operators in the sector, institutions and journalists. As every year, the Association collected the results of the study with the aim of detecting the main structural and economic indicators of the Italian industry in the sector.
The survey - conducted on a sample equal to 51% of Federsalus associates, 240 national and multinational companies distributed throughout the country - captures the vitality of the sector and the great public confidence in these products, even in a critical year like the one.
Resilience and propensity for innovation are the distinctive features of the sector. The pandemic situation has accelerated the digitalization plans of companies: 73% have digitized work processes and 52% have increased remote job opportunities. However, many of the transformations had already been planned "before Covid-19": 47% of companies had, in fact, already started investments in digital technologies, promoted a digital culture (36%) and started digital marketing strategies (31%) .
Due to the pandemic emergency, exports recorded a negative trend (-4.2%) in the last year, nevertheless the activity towards foreign markets is confirmed as a fundamental and with broad margins for development: 54 % of companies state that the incidence of exports on total turnover is less than 25%. Progressively more and more companies have started an activity towards foreign markets: in 2014 43% of companies declared that they did not generate turnover from exports and other foreign activities; with reference to 2020 only 25% declared it. It is also growing the share of companies that declare an incidence of foreign revenues on the total revenues greater than 25% in the last year.
The interest in non-European markets is also confirmed, and in particular: USA, China, United Arab Emirates and Russia; while in Europe attention is growing towards Germany, our country's first trading partner.