Barilla G&R. Fratelli Società per Azioni was founded in 1877 in Parma, more than 125 years ago, as a bread and pasta shop. Today it is Italy's largest food-processing industry. Barilla G. e R. Fratelli Società per Azioni is the parent company of the Group Barilla G. e R. F.lli. In 2003 the Group Turnover rose to euro 2,512 million with a 1.5% increase compared to the previous year and the Group consolidated net profit amounted to euro 107 million. The Parent Company (Barilla G. e R. Fratelli Società per Azioni) separate financial statements of 2003 showed a 1,868 ¤ million turnover with a net profit of euro 135 million.
Barilla's Family headed the Company whose commitment is to offer food products that contribute to a nutritionally balanced diet and are acknowledged to be of the best flavour and of highest quality, manufactured with complete respect to the environment and mankind.
Barilla will focus mainly on two business areas: Italian style Pasta Dishes and Bakery products. It is the leading producer of pasta in the world and the largest group in Italy and the third largest in Europe in bakery products sector, with the brands Mulino Bianco, Pavesi and Wasa. Sales abroad constitute the 30% of the total and the company exports to more a hundred countries. Barilla has 29 worldwide production sites and manages directly 10 mills (in Europe and US) which supply a large quantity of the raw materials it needs.
Cereal based products are the core company business: Barilla is Europe's largest user of durum wheat with more than 1.200.000 ton per year and one of the most relevant for common wheat flour. The Group has continued to work on new technologies, product development and continuous upgrading of the existing products in order to achieve an ever better people satisfaction and to safeguard its right to food safety. The Group has also continued carrying out the research activity in agronomic and milling fields in order to improve the quality of raw materials, their suitability to utilisation in the production process and their nutrition value.
The durum wheat production chain is strongly integrated: durum wheat breeding, Identity Preserved grain production, milling and final transformation. For that reason the company has developed a solid set of expertise and competencies in grain and grain products quality assessment, milling and transformation technologies, food safety control and the management on common and durum wheat production chains.
The R&D headquarter is located in Parma and it has 196 peoples most of them (60%) is graduate or has a degree. Several facilities are available in a 8,100 square meters area in order to support the R&D activities on raw materials and final products.
There are chemical, physic, microbiological and nutritional laboratories provided with the most advanced instruments for analytical detections (i.e. spectrophotometers, GC, MS, HPLC, FPLC, CZE, DSC, NIR System), for rheological tests (i.e. RVA, Instron, SMS, viscosimeters, mixographs, alveographs, etc) or structural investigations (i.e. optical microscopes, SEM, colorimeters, etc)
Pasta and bakery pilot plants are also present with a large variety of the different types of machines required in the production processes such as mixers (traditional, vacuum, steam heated, N2 or CO2 cooled, etc.), extruders (die-plates, one and twin screws, etc.), cutting machines, ovens (electrical, steam, combustion or MW powered, etc.) and dryers (static, vacuum, air forced, MW, etc.). A pilot and a semi-industrial durum wheat mill are also available to test and to scale-up the mill process upgrading
Website:
http://www.barilla.com/
Last updated on 2006-11-09 by Gertrud Linsberger-Martin
