Valentina's Rice

From rice as risotto, to rice as a health food. This is the trajectory that many Italian rice companies have taken to gain access to a wider, more varied and interesting market, evolving beyond the popular dish that is a staple of Italian cuisine.

They are well aware of this at Riso Scotti, the Pavia-based company (25% owned by the Spanish multinational Ebro Foods) who has been processing tons of rice for more than 150 years and which has now put rice-as-commodity in new market segments (rice pasta, rice oil, vegetable drinks, rice crackers etc.) with products distributed in more than 80 countries.

An entrepreneurial expansion that soon exceeded the boundaries of simple brand extension and is now moving into new countries and sectors, catering to new generations. Such is the case of Valentina Scotti, the eldest of Dario Scotti's three daughters, aka the Dr. Scotti of a commercial popular on Italian TV. A Bocconi graduate with previous experience in consulting, Valentina, 33, is the person chosen by the company to win over Eastern Europe. The company put her in charge of Rice Scotti Danubio, the group's largest subsidiary, with a turnover of €22 million, and gave her the mission of developing another branch of the business in Italy and worldwide, the one related to organic foods and well-being, thanks to a new retail brand, So'Riso.

➜ Would you be offended if someone called So'Riso a food marketing operation?
No, though of course it is a lot more than that. Marketing in the food industry has undergone a myriad of mutations: long gone are the days when you put your product on TV, said "this is good", and got sales. Today, communicating consumer goods communication requires companies to have absolute competence, seriousness, perfect knowledge not only of their own product, but of raw materials, suppliers, the whole production chain.. In addition, thanks to the information available on the Internet, the consumer is smarter and better prepared. So'Riso is a real entrepreneurial project, started in 2014 as a format that led early to entering the retail sector with the opening of a bistro in the Assago mall and, now, a second store has been added in downtown Milan, in Corso Magenta. There you can try the products for yourself, so marketing tricks won't work there!

➜ What are the biggest difficulties in starting a retail business for a company that has never done so?
Undoubtedly, you have to familiarize yourself with the culture of service and face-to-face contact with the consumer, who here is really a customer. For the rest, if there is a strong brand behind it, with a wealth of trust and confidence, everything is easier.

➜ Yet you did not brand the stores as Riso Scotti..
Actually, my dad has not yet completely given up on the idea. For him the sign on the stores should have been that. But now he has come to understand that for the tastes of Italian consumer, always in search of new dining experiences, it was better to bet on a new, special-purpose brand. In the US, franchised chains have existed for decades and are synonymous with quality, in Italy this happened only recently, and it would have been a mistake to expose the company brand to the possible risks arising from the operation. However, when exporting our retail model abroad, we'll maintain the Riso Scotti brand, because in that case the dream is more ambitious..

➜ And what is it?
In the end, life is made of one's dreams. My dream is to break into supermarket distribution in several foreign countries, by way of opening retail points, thus walking the trail we have blazed in Italy in reverse, from a risotto brand to a rice brand. An example? In London, I have in mind the Nando's brand, a chain of African-Portuguese restaurants which today also has its products on supermarket shelves. I would like us to undergo the same evolution abroad.

➜ Going back to the So'Riso project, what are the winning elements of the selling proposition?
The basic idea is to emphasize the link between rice and wellness; my previous job experience in the US had already convinced me that food trends towards ancient cereals, veganism, and all-grain products would soon come to our shores. Here in Italy, Riso Scotti already had a range of products that were 100% rice and gluten-free. We just needed to shake off the perception that a Scotti restaurant was bound to serve risotto. To this also contributed our partnerships with top chefs like Davide Oldani, who signed our menu of appetizers. He shares with us the idea that in the future cuisine will be based on fewer ingredients, lighter processing, great creativity, and strong attention to the proper intake of carbohydrates, proteins and fats.