QuiCibo.it, a Window and a Shop for Agribusiness
Only 1% of Italy's agribusiness companies sell their products on a website, despite nearly 15 millions Italians who regularly purchase online. QuiCibo.it wants to fill this gap offering a digital showcase to companies that don't have one, because of costs or lack of know-how. On line since February 2014, the website aims to be a meeting place for consumers and local farmers. To this day it hosts 1000 companies and more than 1500 products sold by genre: meat, dairy products, fruit and vegetables, drinks, and bio. The Italian federation of organic and biodynamic agriculture FederBio is involved in the latter category.
QuiCibo aims to connect producers and consumers, thus shortening the supply chain. It encourages companies to be fully transparent when it comes to providing information about their products. The project starts on Easter Monday 2012 when the two founders Nicola Galetto (27 today) e Marco Grumolato (28), both law graduates, daytrip with some friends in the surroundings of Vicenza. Sitting at a restaurant table, they ask themselves: why not try to sell fine Italian food online? The first move is the participation in the contest "Ripartiamo dalle idee" sponsored by Corriere della Sera, SDA Bocconi, Armando Testa and Intesa Sanpaolo. The team is completed by two business angels, brothers Cristian and Michele Specogna of the namesake wine estate in Friuli. A fifth partner has recently joined, the Milanese financial advisory boutique Madison Corporate Finance.
"Don't call QuiCibo an e-commerce", warns Carlo Tregambe, Head of Marketing and Communication. "We'd rather think of it as a marketplace: we want to be the on line market for the Italian agribusinesses. The e-commerce is placed side by side with a storytelling section in which companies tell their story and with a social network part where producers and consumers meet and exchange ideas on food". The keywords are passion, territory, authenticity, tradition. "We gave to the companies complete freedom to fill out their pages. They describe their products and post photos and videos. That's the beauty of it: the producers present themselves with their own voices".
The registration is free, the revenues come from a percentage of sales. But the business model could evolve: QuiCibo could take advantage of its online exposure and become a platform for communication services for online businesses. Another way to increase revenues is internationalization; as a matter of fact, Galetto is attending the startup business school Mind the Bridge in San Francisco. At Vinitaly, in Verona from March 22 to 25, the team launched the spin off website QuiVino devoted to wine. And the partnership with FederBio could lead the start up from Verona into one of the EXPO 2015 pavilions.