Innovators, not imitators IARP

INNOVATORS, NOT IMITATORS

Focused on supplying commercial refrigeration solutions for food and beverage to multinationals, IARP is also increasingly providing its refrigeration products to the retail sector. Emanuela Di Costa, Marketing Manager, and Stefania Bernardini, Unilever Key Account Manager, talk to Barbara Rossi about the keys to the company’s success.

IARP was established 1983 in Casale Monferrato, north-western Italy. At the time the company, which is still based in the same location, specialised in the production of customised plug-in refrigerated cabinets for the ice-cream sector. Over the years its activity has evolved and grown. In 1998 IARP France – a new commercial, logistics and service facility – was created. This was followed by Thailand-based IARP Asia, which was set up in 2009 and includes a production facility. Finally, in 2013, IARP became part of the EPTA Group.

Today IARP serves a range of large clients, including many multinationals, providing refrigeration solutions for a range of food and beverage products including, but no longer restricted to, the ice-cream sector. Amongst its many prestigious clients are Unilever and Red Bull. The current range on offer features chest and upright freezers for ice-cream and frozen food (including display cabinets), upright coolers for drinks, cold rooms, vending machines, food service equipment, scooping and supermarket refrigeration solutions. Alongside this, the company offers installation, maintenance and other services. A niche activity is IARPElectro, which commercialises freezers and coolers for domestic use.

“Customisation is a very important factor in our success. There are two ways in which we can achieve this: We can either tailor one of our standard models or we can customise from scratch, manufacturing the refrigeration solution according to customer’s specifications,” Ms Bernardini and Ms Di Costa explain.

A special relationship

Having acquired Unilever as a customer has been a major factor in the company’s growth and expansion. Today IARP has a true partnership with Unilever, which it mainly supplies with products for the ice-cream segment. In fact, an important development of recent years has been its inclusion in Unilever’s Partner to Win programme. Ms Bernardini adds, “Unilever, which we have been supplying for a number of years, especially for ice-cream refrigeration solutions, decided to include us in their Partner to Win programme in 2011. This means that, instead of having a traditional supplier-customer relationship, we now have a peer-to-peer relationship, discussing together strategic objectives for the Refreshment sector. A barrier has come down and we now work as a team, being able to put forward suggestions and providing an

added value. Obviously we still need to be competitive on price and fulfil all the other requirements that Unilever has.”

In 2013 IARP received the Unilever Partner to Win Special Contribution Award. This category recognises overall contribution to Unilever, demonstrating a long-term commitment to Unilever’s overall business and significant results in three or more of the five core areas (Capacity, Innovation, Sustainability, World Class Service, Value).

“We respond to their demand for significant growth whilst reducing the environmental impact of our solutions and we intend to continue doing so.”

As a group EPTA achieved a €680 million turnover and in the past five years more than €50 million was invested in R&D. “We invest in R&D on a continuous basis. Our R&D work is carried out at product and process level. Our focus is continuously improving our environ-

mental sustainability and always being at the cutting edge in terms of production machinery, in order to maintain a competitive advantage. Unlike some other market players we are true innovators, rather than imitators,” Ms Bernardini says.

In particular, the company has recently implemented digital printing, which it can now employ alongside screen printing for product customisation. “Recent significant investments have also been carried out in terms of human resources and marketing,” says Ms Di Costa.

The keys to success

Professionalism, innovation, design and quality are central to IARP’s success. This is one of the reasons why the ISO:9001-certified company, which is also equipped with an Intertek listed laboratory, has been implementing vertical production for a number of years, carrying out

many in-house operations that competitors tend to outsource. “This allows us to have control over the majority of our processes.” This trend has further increased since IARP has become part of the EPTA Group.

With regard to market segments, IARP traditionally supplies food and beverage manufacturers, mainly multinationals. Since joining the EPTA Group the company has also developed the retail segment, supplying supermarket chains. “Our mission is to continue serving our traditional multinational clients, but alongside this we are also going to continue growing in the retail channel, thanks to the experience and contacts that the EPTA Group has in this sector.”

Geographically speaking, today Europe (including Italy) is the main market for IARP, followed by Asia (partly thanks to its Thai facility). Australasia is another significant market served by the company. While IARP already supplies the American market (North and South) it aims to further expand there, by setting up a production facility (possibly thanks to an acquisition in Latin America). Emanuela Di Costa further explains, “Producing here would allow us to avoid the hefty custom duties which are in place in these markets. The American continent offers very interesting growth potential. Africa is another interesting market, which we intend to explore soon.

“Our strategy for future development will also focus on product and organisational innovation, as well as on all those aspects which can differentiate us from the competition.” n