Italian Food & Beverage industry: changes in Business Models and Communication strategies during Covid-19

Abstract

In a world completely overwhelmed by Coronavirus emergency, it is crucial to understand how the various industries and companies have reacted and managed the situation. This Master Thesis aims at analysing how Italian companies of Food and Beverage industry cope with rearrangements in business models and in communication caused by Coronavirus effects. Food industry-wide changes will be introduced first by deeply explaining the structure, the composition of the sector and then the analysis evolution of eating habits, food trends and consumption patterns. Studying the changing determinants of industry and consumption is important to understanding both how companies have cope with the crisis and how they approached the change. Secondly, the focus will be moved on Italian food companies by describing how they deal with the pandemic situation. A particular attention will be paid to crisis management procedures and the implementation of strategies. In this context an analysis will be conducted on the Italian food companies’ business models by deeply explaining how they have been rearranged to the situation. The approach of Business Models Canvas will be taken as a reference, also bringing concrete examples of how the various building blocks have been adjusted. Thirdly an examination on how Italian food companies reposition their communication efforts will be carried out by focusing on the changes in the communication process, in the content of the message, in the communications goals, in the budget considerations and in the media mix. The various communication activities and initiatives of food companies will be also introduced, focusing also on the main emerging food communication trends for the future. Finally, in the last chapter, some real case studies through a series of one-to-one semi-structured interviews will be reported with the aim of identifying concretely how these companies have coped with the crisis.