The “longstanding partnership” of the Italian embassy and Italian Trade Agency (ITA) with LuLu Hypermarket has provided small farmers in Italy access to the Qatari market, pushing Italy’s food and beverage (F&B) exports here to higher levels, ambassador Alessandro Prunas said yesterday.
Speaking to Gulf Times on the sidelines of ‘Let’s Eatalian’ products promotion at LuLu Hypermarket, Al Messila branch, Prunas said the event follows up the Italian embassy’s collaboration with LuLu Hypermarket, which started two years ago. 
“This is a bridging partnership between Italy and Qatar, whereby through LuLu we are able to inject the local market with a number of high quality and reasonably priced Italian products.
“Through the agreement that LuLu made with our farmers association, Coldiretti, they can cut a number of mediation costs and provide access to high quality products from Italian farmers. It’s a win-win situation for both the consumers and producers,” Prunas pointed out.
ITA commissioner Giosafat Rigano said, “For the first 10 months of 2020, our F&B exports improved by 3.5% or almost €33mn, which is a good sign and perfect for this country, and commendable in this special period. Thanks to our collaboration with LuLu, our promotional investment has produced good results in terms of sales.”
Dr Mohamed Althaf, director of LuLu Hypermarket, explained that the partnership with Italian embassy and ITA solicited “tremendous response” from consumers.
“We have almost tripled our volumes now through the help of the Italian embassy, the ITA, and our Italian partners. However, the best results will come very soon. Our customers can now select from a popular range of Italian products, which are of high quality and very affordable.
“And the types of products are also increasing, some of which were never available in the region before, so I think it is a fantastic partnership. We are very excited and happy but in the next couple of months, our consolidation facility in Milan, Italy will be done. Once the travel restrictions are over, Italian ambassador Alessandro Prunas will be inaugurating it soon, and that is going to give a tremendous boost to our business,” said Althaf, referring to Y International Italy, an arm of LuLu Group International.