The Sigep is back. And with him the great world of sweet foodservice, which from today to Wednesday met at the Rimini fair in the name of business and internationality. The Italian Exhibition Group show dedicated to ice cream, pastry, bakery and coffee has attracted a crowd of operators from the early hours of the morning. 90 thousand square meters with company stands, artificial intelligence systems for the cash desks with integrated camera that recognize the selected foods and "do the count", "origami" napkins, born from an art competition and soon on the bar counters. And then the 10-kilo chocolate Kebab maxicremino, affixed like ethnic food on a rotating vertical carrier that is cut into flakes with the appropriate knife. Still on the extra-large theme, a one and a half meter coffee bean by the artist Aurora Thomo : covered with over 40 thousand coffee beans, it has a groove in pure gold leaf.

The opening ceremony got off to a touching start with a tribute to Ukraine, with a video display of the waving flag. “This fair”, Stefano Bonaccini, the president of the Emilia-Romagna Region began, “is an extraordinary sign. The president of Ieg, Lorenzo Cagnoni, fought to have Sigep already held this year, rather than postponing it. And I think that this event, in the excellence it presents, is symbolically that brick from which to start again to try to make things go better. The economy of this region was flying: we closed 2021 with 6.9% growth, we have to go back to 1975 to find similar values. For the sixth consecutive year, Emilia-Romagna is first in terms of growth, together with Veneto. The export data, and the fairs make an extraordinary contribution with respect to the value of the agri-food supply chains, say that each Emilia-Romagna region exported the equivalent of 16,300 euros, double the national average. The prospects for growth and employment could be revised downwards by the drama of this war, but there is no point in GDP that is not worth the right to fight for freedom and democracy".

The president continued: "We tried to understand how to respond to the need for innovation in our sector. And we did it with digital, so that it can become an added value to the quality of our product offer, and trying to use possible alliances. with other interlocutors to achieve indispensable synergies. Today we can count on an alliance with the Cologne fair to export Sigep to Shenzhen in China, and with the Hanover fair to operate with them on the Mexican and US markets. With Informa Market, at starting from Dubai, we have started to organize new events in the world of jewelery and goldsmithing. They are alliances that make us imagine new goals and give us strength on the domestic market".

Gian Marco Centinaio, Undersecretary of State for Agricultural, Food and Forestry Policies, concluded: "All production chains are in the midst of a perfect storm, with dizzying increases in raw materials, gas and fuels affecting the economies of production, distribution and consumption. The attention of the Government, in addition to being aimed at optimizing aid from the NRP and European funds, is aimed at combating speculative phenomena that also affect the grain and agri-food chain. In this sector, Italy is a leading player in the world with 52 billion in exports. Our country does not export products, but real dreams: we must start afresh from this concept to make even more products, territories and traditions known in the world”.