In 2017, Italian food exports exceeded the threshold of 40 billion euro. But the road to reach the other major food-producing countries is still long. This is the message coming from the report prepared by Nomisma which was presented at the meeting ‘Italian food and agriculture in the test of internationalization’ – about the international balance in food and agriculture – that took place in Bologna some days ago.

Italian food exports in 2017 increased by 7% compared to 2016, thanks above all to the excellent performance of some representative Made in Italy products: cheese (+11%), wine (+6%), chocolate (+20%), and bakery products (+12%) above all others. Italy did better than other big exporter countries such as the USA (-0.2%), China (+2.1%), Germany(+3.3%), or Canada (+3.4%), but the distance in absolute value is still high.