Who doesn't know Oscar Farinetti? A native of Alba in Piedmont, son of Paolo, a partisan and Commander of the XXI Brigata Matteotti; founder of the Unieuro chain in 1989, which he led with excellent results until 2003 when he sold it and "threw himself" into the world of food!
In 2004 he founded Eataly, a chain of superstores selling medium-to-high quality Italian products, now present in several countries: 15 outlets in Italy, 9 in Japan, 1 in Turkey, 1 in the United Arab Emirates, 2 in the USA and 4 on cruise ships. Among the ownership of Eataly, alongside Farinetti and his investment fund, worth noting are the stakes held by cooperatives such as Coop Liguria, Nova Coop and Coop Adriatica. Named Entrepreneur of the Year 2014 by Ernst & Young, Farinetti, since entering the food market, has also acquired numerous stakes in Italian companies specializing in the production of food and beverages.
Oscar is certainly one of the greatest living Italian entrepreneurs, but his persona has often been at the center of controversies and situations that many have found disagreeable. One frequently reads about the exploitation of employees, and some suggest this lies behind the state of mind of an Eataly sous-chef who not long ago attacked a colleague with a knife, injuring two people.
More recently, there has been talk of Expo 2015 and the irregular way in which certain contracts were allegedly awarded without competitive bidding; among these, the one awarded to Eataly stands out, with two pavilions of four thousand square metres each, and there are already those who speculate (thinking ill…) about the friendship and political support Oscar has always shown for Premier Renzi, repeatedly expressed within his book "Storie di coraggio" – a book that was supposedly meant to be about wine! The 20 restaurants of Italy is Eataly will then be managed (not for free, of course!) by 120 Italian restaurateurs during the event. The quality selection of products displayed at the Eataly stand will also involve a participation fee of 750 euros.
Today, however, we will talk, as always, about wine! Among the many stakes in companies in the wine sector, Fontanafredda certainly stands out, but so does Borgogno. These two estates have been the focus of attention from Tiziano Bianchi, who launched a petition on the well-known platform Change.org to have Fontanafredda's "Bolla Ciao" wines and the Barolo "Resistenza" withdrawn from the market. The reason?
"We consider the commercial use of these names – which reference founding moments of republican coexistence and Italian history – to be an intolerable commodification of widely shared values. We believe that reckless operations such as these, driven by purely marketing objectives and carried out by those who claim to represent the Made in Italy of the food and wine supply chain, are comparable to a sacrilegious act, because they diminish the significance of collective values and ideals by violently bending them to the dictates of the market."
How can one not share Tiziano's words? The good Farinetti often flaunts his partisan origins, and the impression is precisely that he uses this key to unlock the hearts and minds of those who hold those values dear – but he had not yet reckoned with the partisans of the web!
What do you think?
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