Made in Italy agrifood is Italy’s black oil, one of our most important resources. It is the result of our diverse popular cultures, of our expertise, of our territory and of the many microclimates of the Italian environment. For this very reason, on behalf of I Love Italian Food, we believe in the true meaning of the Made in Italy, the one actually made in Italy for real, both in and by our territory.

Italy’s future is strictly bound to the Italian agrifood’s future and to its ability to expand and succeed abroad, beyond the national frontiers. Indeed, Made in Italy is one of the most beloved and wanted features of Italy abroad. It also represents a seventh of our economy.

This letter wants to be a call to all those people which will contribute to the building of Made in Italy’s future, concretely with their choices. And we ask people to join us in facing two important challenges:

1) regaining the centrality of real Italian products and of enterprises that invest on the territory;

2) building a network at the international level, by taking advantage of all the amazing opportunities that innovation is opening to us.

We gave birth to I Love Italian Food by starting from these very challenges: on the one hand, by promoting our food and wine culture and tradition and the Italian manufacturers; on the other, by modeling a digital network made of thousands of food professionals from all over the world.

We did all this during the first year of our activity by organizing international events in New York, London, and Paris; by welcoming and informing more than 1.500 food operators during Cibus; by launching a 2.0 system in order to preserve Italian enterprises starting from the bottom; and by talking with more than thirty million people in 29 different countries, worldwide. And we did it using a very small annual budget, already made possible thanks to the activities of our Association and, most of all, thanks to the innovative participatory system that we use for all our projects.

We are a small situation that represents an example of today’s possibility to create networks at the international level in a direct and innovative way. It is possible by thinking in a collaborative way and by dropping out of Italy’s local rivalries, as we are confident that realities which take advantage of Made in Italy’s value – without any qualification – are the real rivals we should be afraid of. 98% of the Italian food enterprises are small enterprises, with less than 50 operators. Therefore, the need for networking is even stronger.

Hence, we are now asking all of you, both Italian enterprises and operators who believe in the importance of Made in Italy, to join us by networking with other companies, chefs, restauranteurs, buyers, suppliers, bloggers, journalists and thousand of other realities that are the same as you, that is, hundred per cent Italian.

Because we do believe that 2015 could be a good year, a 100per100 Italian year.

Thank you and a happy “Italian Food 2015”.

I Love Italian Food