Filiera Madeo turns 40 and brings 'nduja and Calabrian black pork to the US

Everything is ready for the landing in the United States of Filiera Madeo's nduja and Calabrian cured meats. "We are the first company in the South authorised to export meat products to the USA, with all the procedural and operational difficulties that entails," says Anna Madeo, not without a touch of pride, who has just become president of the company founded 40 years ago by her father Ernesto, who now, as mayor of San Demetrio Corone (the town in the province of Cosenza where the company is based), is putting her experience as an entrepreneur at the disposal of a difficult territory - but one united by its roots in the historic community of Albanian origin.

Exports to 25 countries already account for 43% of Madeo's business, and the landing in the US comes after an increase in cross-border sales of almost 30% in 2023 alone. "The market in Italy is at a standstill, especially this year, the growth only comes from abroad, says Anna Madeo. We expect a lot from the US because there is a high demand for made in Italy, for the 'original nduja', which I hope will soon have the denomination of origin we have been working on for some time. We hope to replicate what we managed to do in the United Kingdom: nduja there is perceived as a cream, a hot sauce, and so we have proposed it in formats suitable for those uses. More generally, abroad there is more willingness to pay more for quality products. And there are many more large-scale retail chains that sell ours and other products of excellence, while in Italy in our case there is only one, and the paradox is that we cannot keep up with demand quickly because our production cycle lasts three years'.

Filera Madeo's turnover has grown by 55% in the last five years, and the trend continues in a period that is not easy for the national pig sector, where rising production costs and the effect of inflation on consumption have hit harder than elsewhere.
Have margins been affected? "In 2023 we had a turnover of 26 million, this year we are expecting 28 million: the approximately 8% growth in this case is practically only due to the increase in volumes," explains the president, "while of the increase in revenues in previous years at least 15% is due to the rise in prices. But ours is a sector where margins range from 2 to 5 per cent, and the increase in costs has not been completely transferred to price lists. In our case, supply chain integration and a product range that differs from the majority of the market help us to defend ourselves against fluctuations in wholesale pork prices, which sometimes have speculative trends. The increase in self-production of renewable energy has also helped to keep costs down, although we are not yet self-sufficient.

Madeo is in fact a 'supply chain' in name and in fact, a locally integrated reality that revolves around Calabrian black pigs (but there are also white ones) that includes four farms - 'with specifications approved by 18 associations active in animal welfare' - three processing plants, four production lines, more than one hundred hectares of fields (from which, for example, cereals are produced to feed the pigs), more than 200 thousand chilli plants and organic olive groves.

"And there are 7 million investments underway until 2027," adds Madeo, "for the expansion of farms and production lines, the purchase of machinery, photovoltaic panels to reach the target of 1.5 megawatts from solar energy, purification plants and research into sustainable and recyclable packaging.