CENTRALE DEL LATTE D’ITALIA strengthens its strategic partnership with Alibaba in China, and takes off in the “new retail” sector: in addition to the online flagship store, CLI has made its entrance into the two major distribution chains, Hema and RT-Mart.

Over 1.5 million litres of milk sold in China.

One year on from the start of the partnership, Centrale del Latte d’Italia (CLI) has strengthened its ties with Alibaba, world leader in the online and mobile business sector, and has opened its first Chinese online flagship store on Tmall, the largest b-to-c (business to consumer) e- commerce platform of Alibaba Group, which guarantees access to a potential market of 576 million active consumers per year.

The online store sells products under the Mukki label, the Tuscan brand of CLI Group, synonymous with excellence and an emblem of top Italian quality. Products sold include long- life milk in various sizes, cooking cream and pastry cream. The online store also features a simple, intuitive account of the history, products and values of the brand, accompanying the Chinese consumer on a voyage of discovery through the Italian milk production and supply chain.

Thanks to the profitable agreement signed in October 2017, CLI has sold over 1.5 million litres of product in just 12 months.

Total Centrale del Latte d’Italia exports rose from € 944 thousand at 30/9/2017 to € 2.6 million at 30/9/2018.

Milk has confirmed its position as one of the best-selling and most popular food products with Chinese families through the online channels. In just one day – the Singles Day, the world’s largest online shopping event held on 11 November – almost 100,000 cartons of Mukki milk were sold.

In addition to e-commerce, Centrale del Latte d’Italia has also made its entrance into the traditional major retail chains Hema and RT-Mart, recently incorporated in to Alibaba Group.

CLI will now therefore be able to count on a multi-channel sales network in China, defined “new retail” by Alibaba, a blend of the e-commerce and retail concepts that places the consumer at the centre, making it easy to make purchases everywhere.

“We are very satisfied with the partnership with Alibaba, which has been in operation for over a year”, said Marco Luzzati, Sales Manager for Centrale del Latte d’Italia Group. “In the last three months, thanks to the new agreements that embrace both the online channel and the major retail chains, we have dispatched over 30 tank containers of products“.
“Today, total exports account for almost 3% of Group turnover. Our aim is to increase sales abroad to 10% of turnover by 2020”, added Luzzati.

“To support the growth of the Group’s growth and the volume of exports”, Marco Luzzati explained, “the company is carrying out major renewal work on the Turin factory, for a value of € 22 million, which will be completed by 2020, and is also aimed at optimising logistic flows of products destined for export”.
“Last year, Alibaba signed an agreement with Centrale del Latte d’Italia allowing it to sell Mukki brand Italian milk on Tmall, Alibaba’s largest B2C platform”, said Rodrigo Cipriani Foresio, Alibaba Group Managing Director for Italy, Spain, Portugal and Greece and General Manager of Europe Tmall Business Development. “Since then, the collaboration with Mukki has been yielding increasingly important results both for us and for the company, proving that the right approach to the Chinese market and a medium-long term plan always pay off. So we’re very happy that Mukki this year decided to take part in the Singles Day for the first time, and that it chose this important event to experience our New Retail strategy, with its offline debut too, with Hema and RT – Mart”.

With 4 factories and some 415 employees, Centrale del Latte d’Italia Group produces and sells more than 120 products, ranging from milk and milk products to yogurt and drinks of plant origin, distributed in over 16,000 traditional shops and large retail chains in the pertinent areas under the brand names TappoRosso, Mukki, Tigullio and Vicenza.

Media contacts:
Centrale del Latte d’Italia
Barabino & Partners
Donata Astengo
e-mail: d.astengo@barabino.it
Tel. 010.272.50.48
Mobile: 349.77.25.787