Fico closes: the story of the Farinetti project

>

The Italian Peasant Kitchen factory opened by Oscar Farinetti in 2017 on the outskirts of Bologna no longer exists. "Among the things I haven't managed very well, Fico is one of them," the Eataly guru explained during a Radio24 program. But an ice shower immediately followed: there would be no more Fico, and in four months something called "Grand Tour Italia" would open in the same place. If it's not soup, the bread is moist, but since 2012, Farinetti's in Bologna has been extensively painted with a red carpet that's hard to see the end of. However, the cold facts are inexorable: the Fico has never worked commercially or communicatively. So, no international brand based on mortadella and mozzarella.

This telenovela about a quality food park started eleven years ago now, in 2012, and in a very different way.

Andrea Segre, the professor of agrarian politics who became Farinetti's accomplice in selling Fico to all possible investors from Bologna, had a historic food education project on his hands. On the ten hectares of Caab, the Agri-Food Complex Center in the northeast of the city of Bologna, there should have been something more educational, but the slide is being climbed by Farinetti himself, very close to Renzi when he was about to become secretary of the Democratic Party. In early 2012, a couple of visits by the barolo author to the plain of Padana and Bologna is conquered. Farinetti brings everything to life: in an area made up of tall industrial warehouses, largely enclosed and equal to 14 soccer fields, visitors can see the entire production chain of Made in Italy products: from the (poor) cows and pigs kept there for the sake of beauty, to the kneading of panettone, passing by pear and apple trees.

There was an immediate presentation that even the most persistent dreamer would have been hard-pressed to accept had it not been witnessed by the city administration of Bologna:

In 2015, five and a half million visitors were planned, which was to become six and a half million by 2019. In other words, one tenth of the Italian population had to go to a wide six-foot wide suburban alley one year to eat tagliatelle after watching the sauce being made. But no numbers can stop dreams, not even Disneyland in Paris. The municipality of Bologna gives Farinetti a free plot of land, provides Tper with Fico-only buses, and even decorates freeway signposts - those identifying places and historical monuments - with the Fico inscription. But then there is the problem of money: the PAI Foundation, managed by Prelios, is supported by Coop Alleanza, which takes full responsibility for Farinetti, and a flow of private funds from the mutual aid funds of professional orders and private companies begins. Raising 75 million euros is dragging on and taking a long time, so that the Cathedral of Tortellini does not open on a gray Thursday in November until two years later, in 2017.

Between 2022 and 2023, another twist:

Entry to the Fico costs 15 euros per person, 10 if the ticket is bought online. In other words, to eat lunch or go shopping that you can do for free elsewhere, you'll have to pay an entrance fee. Whereas before Fico was only struggling to survive, now it's going deep red. In May 2023, Farinetti shells out 15 million euros to acquire 100% of Fico Spa, the company that manages the park, with Coop Alleanza 3.0, which in turn steps aside, becoming only a shareholder and financial sponsor of the real estate fund that receives rents. And so we approach the summer of 2023, another summer of tears and blood, with huge parking lots half empty as usual. Farinetti prepares his backlog in his usual hum and seriousness. "I'm the one who didn't explain it well. "

But Cgil, Cisl and Uil do not share his opinion and, as soon as they read the words of the owner of Eataly, fall out of favor: "We learned with horror and concern and exclusively from the media about the imminent closure of Fico Park for renovation. What's worse, in a testament to the total lack of respect and consideration for the workers, they learned of the park's closure at the same time and in the same way that Farinetti announced a "powerful renaissance plan" for Fico Park this past May, excluding social cushioning and the goal of paying off all debts." In other words, what will happen to Fico's employees, even though there aren't many of them left? Nothing is known about the restructuring plan, although Fico is bidding to replace People Mover, another big project under the Democrat Party with a very complicated life, in a special ranking of big and useless projects for the city.