Aromatic herbs, business exceeds 800 million

Medicinal plants are 'blossoming again'. The interest in 'natural' foods (such as herbal teas) and herbs, the fashion for liqueurs and cocktails made from herbal bouquets (so-called botanicals) and the boom in food supplements (of which we are the largest purchasers in the EU with EUR 4.5 billion of expenditure in 2023, source: FIU) are driving this sector, which globally increased by 24% between 2021 and 2023, reaching USD 200 billion, Distal notes. In Italy, the first-processing market for 'botanicals' has exceeded EUR 800 million, thanks mainly to essential oils, spices and medicinal plants (EUR 563 million). Providing these estimates is Fippo (Italian Federation of officinal plant producers) based on Itc Trade Map data, as Italy lacks updated official numbers on officinal plants, since the last sector study carried out by Ismea dates back to 2013.

'We estimate that in Italy, medicinal plants, spices and essential oils have increased their turnover by 23 per cent in the last five years, partly due to higher prices but also to an increased market demand,' explains the president of Fippo, Andrea Primavera. 'Companies have come up with many new products containing medicinal herbs. A transversal trend that goes from food to cosmetics to green pesticides'. However, supply is not keeping up with the increase in demand. The 'dwarfism' of the production structure, which is still too parcelled out, but also the difficulty in finding the labour force for harvesting (traditionally carried out by the Roma) is weighing heavily.

The case of Emilia Romagna is emblematic, where, reveals a study by Distal/University of Bologna, in eight years the areas have increased by 82% (480 hectares in 2023) and the operators have more than doubled (644). But 91% of them are micro-enterprises (1-2 hectares) with a short supply chain, which grow herbs and process them into products for the end consumer. Few, on the other hand, are the medium-large companies (over 15 hectares and highly mechanised), which produce good quantities of dried herbs and essential oils for wholesale sale, even on the international market.

After all, Italy, although it has a large deficit of botanical raw materials (imports cover 72% of the market), is also an exporter of valuable products, with excellence recognised worldwide. Such as citrus essential oils (bergamot, in particular), liquorice and passion flower. But Italy is also the largest producer of coriander from seed (an estimated 20 thousand hectares), which is then exported via a large British group to Asia where it is consumed fresh. Another export champion is the Sicilian oregano, considered the best in the world and produced mainly in the Agrigento area, which is almost entirely destined for North American countries while on Italian shop shelves triumphs the oregano imported from Turkey. These are the effects of market globalisation, in which medicinal herbs have been a vanguard given their wide and widespread use throughout the world. Now moving the scenario is the changing demand from large users, such as India and China, who are turning towards quality officinal herbs, such as those produced in the EU, also to escape the risk of adulteration, which is high for low-cost products.

And here Italy would have the cards in order to satisfy this qualitative demand, because its morphological characteristics allow the cultivation of a wide variety of species (around 130, from Alpine to Mediterranean) and because there is still a widespread agriculture rooted in the territory, which could focus on these products with a wide range of uses. Fippo estimates that some 15-20 thousand tonnes of medicinal plants and 10 thousand tonnes of aromatic herbs are missing. 'We are at an epoch-making moment for our sector: either we grow, increasing production, structuring it according to demand and increasing critical mass, or we implode,' says Primavera, who knows the market well because he realises 90% of the turnover of his company, Sana Pianta, abroad.