By definition “excellent” means something that surpasses everything else due to merit and quality.
It is something precious, of great value.
And when you can taste it, it is exquisite.
Today with two entrepreneurs who have made quality at all costs the key to their success of excellence.
They are Giulio Trombetta and Dario Casalini.
Giulio Trombetta 55 years old, is President and CEO of Costadoro–whose history began in 1890 in Turin-one of Italy’s leading industrial companies exporting to more than 30 countries with one major objective: to spread the culture of coffee throughout the world.
In 1936, the Oscalito brand was founded. Working only with high-quality natural fibres, it developed underwear and knitwear lines for men, women and children. In 2014, the third generation joined the company and Dario Casalini, a former law professor, gradually took the reins, leading the brand to renew itself and grow on an international scale, but always in the name of continuity.
What does it mean for you to be an excellent company?
GIULIO TROMBETTA
In my opinion, to be an excellent company today, you have to be socially useful. Being socially useful means having respect for the product, respect for the environment, respect for people. I’m talking about coffee and you certainly have to start with an excellent raw material. Already having respect for the environment – because in the whole production process one has to have an eye for the environment – one can therefore try to favour reuse, to try within one’s own production cycle to use elements that do not have a dramatic impact on the environment.
I believe we will be I believe we will be the first company in Italy to produce its entire production with compostable packaging that can be assimilated with organic waste. A big step forward, if you like, also economically because a compostable packaging now costs about three times as much as a normal one. Last but not least, respect for people. When I talk about people I talk about employees I talk about suppliers I talk about customers, so try to have an absolutely honest and transparent approach to all stakeholders involved in your production process.
So excellence, we said, must always be combined with tradition and innovation, and so here in this display case we have brought together a whole process that goes from respect for very old material traditions to the most modern research. I would ask Dario to tell us what is in this box and what tradition and innovation represent for him.
DARIO CASALINI
Unfortunately, we have a market system in which and innovation is perceived as novelty so as long as it is new and this has created an almost disposable market. For innovation, as Giulio rightly says, is a different thing, i.e. it means improving on the product and the process but respecting certain fundamental values. We only use natural fibres with a very short supply chain so all suppliers are Italian or European and we produce environmentally friendly garments in terms of production process and end-of-life. They are recyclable garments because they are natural and respect the person, both those who work in them and those who have to wear them because obviously wearing a garment made of natural fibres has an aspect of healthiness and protection that goes a little beyond what is the image we are used to associating with fashion.
In my opinion, innovation does not clash with craftsmanship, indeed craftsmanship for us is a value that is a counterpoint to the standardisation of products and also of the sales network that we are experiencing. We unfortunately pass through a city centre and everything is the same, we no longer know whether we are in Paris or London or Turin or Milan. Products are the same, and so having the promotion of ‘local know-how’ as a core value also means differentiation, it means making culture, and it means that for us, differentiation creates wealth.
We need to counteract the desire for homogenisation that exists globally and instead go and rediscover that cultural differences translated into the fashion industry creates deflation that needs to be acquired, shared and respected
And how nice it is when you can combine culture with entrepreneurship and culture goes in the direction of the future with research, innovation and also goes in the direction of the past, especially when there is a great tradition behind it. This bizarre object that you will now illustrate is indeed a witness to your ancient history. It’s a probe, isn’t it?
GIULIO TROMBETTA
That’s right, a sampler, a probe to take coffee samples. We have said before that an excellent company starts with an excellent product, so all batches of raw coffee that come back into the factory must be probed to see if there is a match with what was actually purchased. Since the time delay from purchase to receipt of goods can be as long as two, three or four months, we have to be extra sure that what we have purchased is actually what arrives at the plant. This object, which among other things is one of the very few objects in the company that has never changed – I think it is over 100 years old – is used to make a kind of core drilling in the bag in the cloth without breaking the bag and to be able to take a sample of raw coffee, to be able to test it, to be able to see if on an organoleptic level it corresponds to the peculiarities of the product we have bought. So in a company, having a history behind it is an asset, even if the risk of the historical company – as in our case, which is more than 130 years old – is to pass for an obsolete company, so one must always combine history, tradition with innovation, technology.
In my opinion, the secret is to rely on young people who are a resource within companies like ours, which are family businesses but not so much in passing on knowledge but in passing on values.
I always say that in the generational change from one generation to the next, the important thing is not the transfer of shares but the transfer of values, which must be really well perceived by the young because then they must be replicated in order to have a coherence and continuity like that of the old.
Speaking of continuity, I would ask a question about current events, in the sense that it is undeniable that this is a rather dark period because of the pandemic and all the repercussions, including economic ones, that it is having in Italy and around the world. In this case, is it possible to maintain continuity in production and quality, indeed in production excellence?
DC
As far as we are concerned, of course it is difficult for a company that produces from yarn to the finished garment, then weaves cut and sew, to do smart working, so smart working has been limited to a very few figures within the clerical sector, but then both the workers and the labourers, those who really are the lifeblood of the company, I must say that they have been exceptional and we will be grateful for a long time for their sense of responsibility and self-sacrifice for which we have never stopped. We also invented a very special mask that to date is still the only cotton mask certified as a CE medical device with a removable and interchangeable filter. However, they made it possible to continue the business and deliver everything in perfect timing, thanks to a very short supply chain. It is an absolute vertical integration because we have the material in house and therefore once we have the material, even raw material, we just have the wire and then we do everything else ourselves and this has been very much appreciated by our customers because, although it is true that the pandemic interrupted the sales campaign, then the restocking started and we were very much rewarded because we were among the few who could be completely autonomous on production and therefore give an extra service.
So it can be done, you have to have people, as Giulio says so well, who share your values, and I must say that our employees from the first to the last really share the values and goals in a heartfelt way.
Values and also economic goals for the future, would you like to tell us something?
I believe that in difficult economic times like these the temptation to go down in quality is strong. However, this is the wrong way to go. In my opinion, the only thing that differentiates us, us Ebt companies, similar companies even though we have absolutely different product types, is the spirit of always maintaining a very high level of quality.
My dream is to be able to make the customer an aware consumer because we do not need to ‘cheat the customer’. We need cultured customers.
I liked the word you used ‘culture’, the culture of coffee is a culture that in fact does not exist, we must try to create it and perhaps the big challenge for companies is to be able to make people appreciate quality because we are so presumptuous to believe that if the consumer becomes an aware consumer he is able to choose us and will choose us and it is never a question of price, It is never a question of price, because, as we were saying before, in difficult economic times, people, having less money, have learnt to relativise their spending, so I would rather have a coffee less, but when they have it, they want it to be good, and they are willing to pay a little more for it, because it has to be a moment of pleasure.
So in a time of crisis, the company becomes a cultural operator, which is precisely the sector that is suffering the most from the crisis.
DC
But in fact what Giulio says is great for me because the consumer education aspect is something that sets the whole group apart. The idea is precisely not to follow a taste and provide an extra material good. The point is that I have to educate you to distinguish and spend better, but as a matter of wellbeing, health and wellness, the two concepts are very much inseparable.
GT
Absolutely yes, also because now I don’t know about the yarn industry, but certainly in the food industry ‘what is good is also good, what is bad is also bad’ so we have to be able to understand what we actually eat and drink because it is absolutely essential.
So since your association aims to network, can this be one of the meanings of networking? network also of company culture
For me, and I always say that EBT is the most important association of which my company is a member, partly because it is a network of friends but mainly because we have two very special aspects. On the one hand, I am convinced that we represent a constituent component of the territory: for me, industry must stand alongside the elements that make up and define a culture – hence the landscape and art at all cultural manifestations. On the other hand, because these are companies that have an industrial model that is antithetical to the worst deviation of capitalism and globalisation. The fact of having short supply chains, supply chains of excellence that put quality before everything and ensure that the product has the right balance between value and price, but above all the fact of promoting an entire supply chain and local know-how that would be lost. Because the problem is that both Giulio and I probably have to teach all the skills we have in the company to those who come in: it is difficult nowadays to find someone who already comes in with some skills, apart from those that represent pure innovation, but we have to pass on the tradition to future generations and this for me is a fundamental thing, a commitment that we naturally have.
GT
I, on the other hand, believe that networking is absolutely fundamental because I think that the peculiarity of the true entrepreneur, besides versatility, is that of curiosity and hunger for knowledge. Quale occasione migliore è quella di confrontarsi con altri imprenditori? What better opportunity is there to engage with other entrepreneurs? I realise – I have only been in the EBT network for four years, but I have learnt so much from my colleagues even though they perhaps make absolutely different products, and I hope that they have learnt something from me, from my company, so this cultural exchange of values for me is fundamental and unavoidable and this is a first aspect. The second aspect is that very interesting co-marketing can be done with several of our companies. We just finished one with Pepino, we made an ice-cream a Pinguino with coffee which turned out to be a great success. The two companies had similarities – although they were of different sizes with absolutely different merchandise – but had an absolutely equal basic spirit: historicity, territoriality and a maniacal fixation on quality. We have made an ice cream where the coffee is at its maximum, the milk at its maximum, the chocolate at its maximum, and this has unified us and I believe that we can make others because, as I said, fantasy has no limit, so I hope one day to collaborate with Dario and others who are part of the network.
I thank you because when talking about business, the words that emerged most strongly were respect, culture, imagination, education, criticality, and this is rare and very valuable. Thanks again.