Vico Food Box (Cegua), the down parcel for expats grows business

It all started when the Italian expats were them. Four young people arrived from Naples to Amsterdam with a load of dreams and a good job in different fields: from software to catering to pharmaceuticals. For years they have been fighting nostalgia. They miss Sundays with the smell of tomato puree wafting through the house. But if it is at the table that the sense of emptiness for Italians abroad is at its strongest, it is here that the ingenuity of the South finds unexpected paths and, by crossing tradition and innovation, the project of 'sending Italia to your home' takes shape through the 'package' that arrives from the South with its load of unique and genuine flavours.

Thus, in 2019, Vico Food Box, an acronym of the initials of the first two partners, Gennaro Viscardi and Vittorio Colonna, was born in the Netherlands. The aim is to recreate the pantry at home, with a reliable and human service bringing authentic Italian products at the right price, like those of the Vico shops, the small markets that animate Italian towns. In 2020, the return to Italia, in Naples, and the birth of the new company: Cegua (from the initials of the other two partners, Debora Celentano and Antonio Guarrera).

Today, vicofoodbox.com is among the e-commerce with the best reputation on the web, specialising in the sale and distribution of Italian food products (great classics and regional specialities) throughout Europe and the UK for B2C individuals and soon also for B2B companies. A flexible business model: each customer can compose his or her own box choosing from over 10,000 items, also unobtainable abroad. Fast shipping with the main international couriers and free delivery for orders of 70 euro and more make the difference thanks to an ecosystem that includes e-commerce, in-house warehouse and logistics, multilingual assistance and marketing team. The numbers speak for themselves: 400,000 customers and 1.3 million boxes shipped.

In six years, a growth of 50% per year with a turnover of EUR 6.9 million (+52% compared to 2024), over 5,000 references, a warehouse of 5,000 square metres in Naples; over 10,000 reviews with very high ratings (4.9/5), 300,000 newsletter subscribers (50% in Italian), 40 employees in Naples and an allied industry of 30 companies between logistics and marketing, with a forecast turnover for 2026 of over EUR 10 million.

In 2027, the aim will be to deliver fresh products as well, and after having enlarged the headquarters in Southern Italy, a second warehouse in Northern Europe, possibly in Germany. But Gennaro Viscardi, co-founder and CEO, does not forget the beginning, as a joke, when his mother, who wanted to send him a parcel from Naples, invited him to ask his friends if they wanted anything. "Eventually the parcel became a 410 kg platform that arrived in Holland with the support of a forwarding agent carrying flowers. Then with cargo bikes and a car all the food was distributed". Since then it has been a crescendo with skyrocketing orders and requests for boxes all over Europe.