«Artisti dell’Opera», a company club to promote pears and the brand

The “Artisti dell’Opera” – or Artist of Opera – will be distributing, in exclusive through the channels of the agricultural produce centres, the fruit of the group born four months ago thanks to the agreement between 18 leading companies (Agrintesa, Alegra, Apo Conerpo, Apo Scaligera, Apol Industriale, Cico, La Diamantina, FruitModena Group, Iaffa, Ital-Frutta, Mazzoni, Naturitalia, Op Ferrara, Op Francescon, Opera, Orogel Fresco, Patfrut, Sant’Adriano) that represent about one thousand fruit farmers that produce approximately 200 thousand tons of pears. The Agricultural Produce Centres represent a market where 45% of the volume of pears sold in Italy passes.

The “Artisti dell’Opera” are a club of important sales operators in the agricultural produce sector in some of the major provinces in Italy, including Turin, Genoa, Milan, Bergamo, Brescia, Bolzano, Verona, Vicenza, Padua, Trieste, Udine, Treviso, Bologna, Rimini, Florence, Livorno, Cagliari, Oristano, Pescara, Rome, Salerno, Bari, Lecce, Foggia, Cosenza, Palermo, Agrigento and Catania.

“We have involved about forty of the leading companies located in more than 20 provinces throughout Italy — explained the Opera General manager Luca Granata to Italiafruit News — to further consolidate a project that, a little by little, intends to call the attention of the masses to the pear, a fruit that is typically Italian, delicious, nutritionally excellent, but as of today largely neglected in terms of consumer communications.”

Abate pears by Opera ready to be launched on the markets

The wholesale channel is backed by the already supplied large-scale distribution channel – which handles 55% of the volume of pears, – already widely served for more than two months.

“The product is easy to display and attractive, even beautiful,” says Granata. “Expectations are good and our members are for the moment quite satisfied with what we succeeded in accomplishing over the first 121 days of business in Opera. But obviously we are just at the beginning. Now we will see what we can do and what we can earn on the markets over forthcoming weeks, months, and years. The mid-term objective? Simple: we produce about one-third of the national pear production and are aiming to gradually cover one-third of the Italian market share…”

“We have a premium product, but we want to propose an excellent quality-price ratio: Opera is probably the best pear, but its price will make it affordable for many, even if not everyone…,” concludes Granata.