Conserve Italia Completes €86.9 Million “Smart Factory” Overhaul

Celebrating 50 Years with Industrial Vision

Conserve Italia officially launched the celebrations for its 50th anniversary by pulling back the curtain on its newly modernized “Pomposa Smart Factory.” Founded on May 24, 1976, as a way for regional agricultural cooperatives to pool resources rather than compete, the powerful Italian agro-industrial group has marked its half-century milestone by successfully wrapping up its major 2023–2026 investment plan.

Backed by public-private frameworks including Development Contracts, Supply Chain Agreements, and Italy’s National Recovery and Resilience Plan (PNRR), the final budget for this sweeping modernization reached 86.9 million euros. While the plan directly impacted seven production facilities across Italy and the group’s headquarters in San Lazzaro di Savena, more than half of the total resources were channeled into the flagship Pomposa facility in Ferrara, turning the site into a fully interconnected, data-driven industrial ecosystem.

Scale, Strategy, and Market Competitiveness

As Europe’s largest single tomato processing hub, the 30-hectare Pomposa plant processes roughly 300,000 tons of raw material annually out of the group’s total seasonal volume of 600,000 tons of fruit and vegetables. To safeguard the competitive edge of iconic historical brands like Cirio—now celebrating 170 years—Yoga at 80 years, and Jolly Colombani at 100 years, the group utilized the investment plan to execute a profound digital and ecological transition. Financially anchored by a robust 2024–2025 turnover of 1.15 billion euros, the cooperative represents 14,000 agricultural producers across 35 base cooperatives. This vast scale is now being optimized through cutting-edge processing upgrades designed to increase capacity, enhance the organoleptic qualities of the final products, and dramatically curb environmental impact in the strictly regulated Po Delta region.

The ‘Thor’ Evaporators and Thermal Efficiency

The technological centerpiece of this multi-plant industrial overhaul is the deployment of five next-generation mechanical vapor recompression concentrators, named Thor. By utilizing a mechanical compressor to recycle process steam, the Thor evaporators cut primary thermal energy consumption and slash natural gas use by 50 percent.

Two of these units are now fully operational at Pomposa, with the remaining three distributed to Ravarino, Mesagne, and Albinia. Beyond reducing annual carbon dioxide emissions by 10,000 tons across the group, the fully automated Thor systems have shifted operators out of the traditional plant floor environment and into safe, climate-controlled digital control rooms. Furthermore, the gentler thermal processing inherently preserves the natural color, freshness, and quality of the processed tomatoes.

Diversifying Regional Processing Lines

On the processing floor, the investment has specifically transformed Pomposa’s fine pulp sector through the introduction of advanced extrusion, draining, and optical sorting lines, alongside specialized concentrators for premium sauces. Responding to market demands for high-convenience packaging, the plant also debuted a single-dose, vacuum-packed legume line equipped with rotary autoclaves and automated vacuum-seaming systems. Resource optimization was mirrored at other key tomato sites: Ravarino expanded its glass bottling capacity with new purée and pulp concentrators and shower pasteurizers, while Mesagne added a specialized diced tomato line with dedicated dicers and elevators to successfully diversify its output away from its historical dependence on the whole peeled round tomato segment. Meanwhile, the group’s fruit and beverage lines in Barbiano and Massa Lombarda modernized their PET bottling systems to achieve strict compliance with European Single-Use Plastics directives regarding tethered caps, while rolling out eco-friendly end-of-line packaging solutions that entirely eliminate plastic film.

Interconnected Intralogistics and Automation

Crucially, this industrial evolution integrates production directly with advanced intralogistics to eliminate unnecessary internal movement. At Pomposa, a coordinated fleet of 25 laser-guided vehicles handles continuous, autonomous pallet transport across dynamic internal routes. This hardware operates via a sophisticated digital ecosystem where Conserve Italia’s proprietary Manufacturing Execution System communicates in real time with the Smart Integrated Logistics platform, governing physical flows based on shifting production priorities.

The autonomous vehicles service a radically expanded intensive automated warehouse that now features 120,000 pallet spaces, including specialized zones for dry legumes and semi-finished goods, rounded out by automated robotic palletizing, stretch-wrapping, and advanced picking stations.

Human Capital and Sustainability Goals

This massive technological push has been achieved while keeping human capital at the center of the cooperative’s strategy. Conserve Italia, which employs over 3,000 people globally across 12 plants in Italy, France, and Spain, expects a 10 percent increase in total hours worked at Pomposa to drive further growth in its 1,300-strong local workforce. On an environmental scale, the completed 2023–2026 plan achieves an immediate reduction of 12,000 tons of annual carbon dioxide emissions. This feeds into a broader environmental strategy that already leverages 7.6 megawatts-peak of rooftop solar PV installations across five sites to cover 9 percent of the group’s total electricity needs. Moving toward 2027, the group aims to boost its overall renewable electricity share to 42 percent, targeting a total cumulative reduction of 93,500 tons of carbon dioxide over a nine-year period. By anchoring these advanced thermodynamic and robotic systems within a cooperative framework, Conserve Italia enters its second half-century with a scalable, resilient industrial model tailored for the global market.

From left to right: Pier Paolo Rosetti, Maurizio Gardini and Gabriele Brignani

Source: Conserve Italia Press Office