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Yes Food Italia SrlViale Pasteur, 78 00144 Rome Italy

www.yesfood.it

What’s for breakfast?

Yes Food Italia Srl is a distributor of

branded food products for the ho-

tel, restaurant and catering sector.

“Our brands are Yabon®, Grand

Choice®, Yescafè® and Casamia®,

and we are the distributor of brand

leaders in the food breakfast sec-

tor such as Kellogg’s®, Pringles®,

Kimbo®, Nutella®, Galbusera®,

Paluani®, Farmo®, Alce Nero® and

Gentilini®,” says Marketing & In-

novation Manager Alberto Petriola.

“Our particular specialty is hotel

breakfasts. We deliver directly to

clients through our exclusive rights

to certain brands and through

wholesalers for our own brands.”

The challenge for Yes Food is

to deliver products with a suit-

able identity for Hotel Breakfast

Environment, which accounts for

75% of its sales. “We act on their

behalf as an external sales force

and they rely on us for customers’

needs understanding,” says Mr.

Petriola. “This relates in particular

to portion size where big brands

could often gain incremental sales

opportunities by developing a

proper marketing mix and range.

That is where we go directly to

their R&D department and try

and match what they can do with

what our clients need.” As such,

Yes Food works to add value for

both sides. “What we often try to

do is work with a famous branded

product and place a new product

alongside it in a two-way strategy

that benefits both,” adds Mr. Pe-

triola.

Innovation is a key factor in dif-

ferentiating Yes Food Italia from its

competitors, as well as achieving

credibility and awareness through

its workforce. New products are

increasingly focused on gluten-free

and other free-from trends, and

the organic sector. “Surprisingly,

the big brands are rather slow to

respond to these trends in the food

service business market and they

like to cooperate with us in order

to achieve incremental growth in

turnover and market presence,”

says Mr. Petriola. “For new trends,

we have to look at local companies

in Italy.” In the past three years,

the product range has grown from

150 to 600 lines and the sales

force has almost doubled to 75

representatives. “A quarter of our

turnover today comes from prod-

ucts that were not in our portfolio

three years ago,” says Mr. Petriola.

“That is a great achievement.”

Further growth is planned for the

future. “We want to increase the

number of specialties we offer

and our presence in larger cities

to increase sales in the low sea-

son,” says Mr. Petriola. “We are

also targeting export markets in

the coming years with the focus

on restaurants rather than hotels.

Breakfast is a trend in itself and we

know exactly what to serve.” ❙

Interview with Alberto Petriola, Marketing & Innovation Manager of Yes Food Italia Srl

Yes Food Italia lends its expertise to the big breakfast food brands to develop prod-ucts for the Horeca sector

Monoportion packaging forms and detailed layout solutions rule in the hotel breakfast room. Single portions look attractive on the buf-fet. For the big brand manufacturers of breakfast foods, individual packaging does not always come as second nature. That is why Yes Food Italia Srl is there to guide them.