Federalimentare: food industry pillar of Italian manufacturing

The Italian food industry strengthens its role among the pillars of national manufacturing. In 2025, Paolo Mascarino, president of Federalimentare, said in a note, the added value generated by the sector reached 41.5 billion euros, compared to 26.9 billion in 2016, with a growth of +53.9% at current prices. Growth not attributable only to price dynamics: in the same period the added value of the food industry increased by +22.2% in chain values, therefore in real terms.

Particularly significant, comments Mascarino, is also the employment data. Between 2016 and 2025, employees in the sector went from approximately 385 thousand to 470 thousand, with a growth of more than 22%, compared to an increase of approximately 4% in the entire manufacturing sector. "Today the food industry generates over one euro for every eight of added value in Italian manufacturing and employs almost one worker in five. These are numbers that demonstrate how the food industry increasingly represents a great national interest", declares the president of Federalimentare. "The growth of the sector has not just been nominal: in less than ten years we have increased real added value by over 22% and, at the same time, we have increased employment by over 22%. This means that the food industry has also been able to transform economic growth into jobs."

According to Federalimentare, these results confirm the need to include the food industry among the central sectors for a national growth agenda, together with the other large manufacturing sectors.